Sometimes Yahweh takes me by suprise.  Yesterday, after hours of perusing the UT library for books for Beverly's research paper we finally make it to the public library.  As I wonder the fiction shelves I decide to look for specific books on the computer. So I type in a search and get a few names and go look for them.  They all look lame, and as i'm looking for the last one a spine jump off the shelf into my retna.  It was hardbacked, covered in plasticl; blue fading to black with a small floating goldfish at the bottom.  The top said simply, teeth HUGH GALLAGHER, with round-cournered boxes around teet and HUGH G.

I pulled the novel off the shelf and looked at the cover, a picture of an x-ray of teeth and a goldfish.  Turning it to the back I read "Finally, the dental masterpiece we've all been waiting for." -Gore Vidal.

I don't know who Gore Vidal is, but I was entriged immediately.  A dental masterpiece?  The inside flap says, "With roots in the brewing youth scene of the 1990's, Hugh Gallagher's debut novel tracks a young man's search for self through the scatttered shards of a culture in flux."  The author blurb on the back says he "recorded spoken word under the name Hugh Brown Shu, and his college application essay is an Internet classic." 

The plot summery didn't give me many clues, but I had already resolved to read it.  The main character, Neil, has been dubbed New Jack Poet Warrior by his frinds and is also refured to as the Irish Samurai.  The book begins with he dentist's "calm, bearded face." 

It is an interesting tale, and as I finished it this morning I realized that the reason I like it was not so much it's unique, humorous narration, but because it spoke to my soul.  I understood the Neil, learned from him.  The end was a bit lame, not as much of a culmination as I'd hoped, but I closed it with a quiet satisfaction.

Neil is a writer who finally desides to fix his teeth, to move on from dwelling in his dissatisfying past and the pain of his adolescence. 

      "Time had passed.  The laughter had died at some point, and in the silence I had sunken deep down into the cluttered corridors of my mind.  My thoughts were opaque and I couldn't think them, only stroll through them, gazing at the obtuse, clouded shapes, like patterns of frost on frozen morning windows."

      "'Pick me up!!' I screamed into the black night. 'Goddammit! Pick me up!'
      "Without warning, hot, bitter tears of anger flooded my dirty face, and the distant lights blurred before me.  Angrily, I smeared them off my face with filthy, rough hands and stubled on as the sobs overtook my body.  Was if for Flash? Was it for Barb?  Was I crying for the Terrance I left behind of for those stupid kids scrambling and screaming in the stadium or was it my Scotch-soaked parents or that old family dentist or my squalid, Bob Cheese existence...Or maybe I was crying for those days of dental dementia, so long past, but never farther than the touch of my tongue.  I didn't know anymore, and I didn't even care, I just wanted out of the desert, out of the night, our of my life and intot he heavy, kissed nothing of sleep."

Sometimes I feel that I'm the only person to feel as I do, but then I'm reminded that I'm not.  I like being suprized to read my experiences in the fold's of fiction.  It reminds me that Yahweh is my God, and that I am His child.

Something I wrote a few days ago

6/27/07

At work, sometime between 12:20 and 1:20 PM

            I haven’t been “inspired” lately.  Unable to write, draw or paint, or even work on recent and neglected sewing projects, I have wasted away my summer being bored and lazy.  I’ve read worthless novels and watched countless movies and boxed TV series.  I’ve worked some, hung out with friends some, and complained some.

            But this listless ness cannot last, I tell myself.  I must be able to “snap” out of it.  I then get bummed by my disorganization and laziness and inability to be disciplined.  I beat myself up.  I lay in bed with no motivation to ever emerge from the semi-conscious state of sleep-seeking, complete with bowl-movement pains and back aches.

            When did this begin?  When did each day bring no anticipation, no joy?  Why instead of being excited that I am visiting Allison tomorrow do I dread the day, anxious and pissy instead of enthusiastic.  I snap at my family.  I bemoan going to work.  I replace excitement with dread.

            Where is my faith?

            See, I’ve figured out the source of this, the main problem, the “heart issue,” and I’ve realized that I have not faith—well, very little faith.

            Trust.  That small word encompasses so much.  It is the reason I can’t look forward to long-planned social events and also why I can’t paint or sketch, or write.  I do not trust that I will be okay afterwards.

            Its clearer on the social events.  The birthday party, the trip to see Allison, these things could fall through.  They could be dreadful.  No one could show up.  I could feel left out.  Allison and I could discover that we hate each other.  Anything can happen in an unknown situation like that and I cannot risk getting my hopes up only to have them smashed.  I can’t risk being excited because the other people involved might not be as excited and think I am lame or childish.

            You can see where my faith has left me.  Instead of trusting the God of the Universe (try to envision the POWER that small phrase represents) I ruin my mood by giving in to anxiety.

            The other trust issue—my painting and drawing—might seem a little less obvious.  Well, at least it took me a long time to figure out.  I don’t draw because by not drawing I’m still good.  I’m still creative and talented—I still exist.  But if I draw again, maybe I’ll be bad—terrible even.  Maybe I will be as uncreative as a fly, circling the room over and over again searching for a way out.  And then I will no longer exist.  I will be art-less Pam, the girl with nothing but mood-swings.

            I can’t trust God that my terrible drawing will help me improve.  That I am good, even its not perfect at first try.  But especially that I am still valuable if I can’t ever draw anything ever again.  And see, even that I can rationalize away because I know that I am valuable to may people, not based on my art, but on me.  Its to me I would no longer be valuable.  To loose the one thing I desire over everything else?  That is the ultimate failure.

            And so I lose it anyway.  My art dies an even worse death than me long longer being able to draw.  My art dies the death of abandonment.  I fail because I’m afraid of failing.

            It really is about trust.  Its about me denying God the opportunity to make me happy and fulfilled, to let my worry disappear and let enthusiasm return.

            I wish I were different.  I wish I were naturally optimistic and hard working and trusting.  But I’m not.  I am who I am, who I AM made me.  And all I can do to change that is to trust God that He likes me anyway, and to trust Him, period.

            It sounds simple, and I guess it is simple.  But simple and easy are not synonyms.  Increasing my trust in God is changing the core of my attitude, my motivation, my immediate desires.  Increasing my trust in God is changing my heart.  And me changing my heart lets Him change my heart, and that’s what I really want.

            “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understandings, but in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path.”

            If this could be my daily way of life—I cannot go there.  The wishing must stop and the doing must begin.  And the doing is in small things; doodling, calling a friend, getting out of bed, smiling, eating food, reading something other than teen fiction, painting with Julie Ann, painting on my door frame, picking up clothes in my room, making my bed, going outside, taking a walk, doing my laundry, leaving my room, seeking accountability, etc.

            Simple, difficult, and absolutely necessary.

That was before the big collapse.  Crying all day long is very exhuasting.  But I'm okay now.

I talked to Daddy, which is always nice.

Daddy told me that life is about what I want. 

 He also said a lot of other things. He said I have to fight for what I want.

It's hard, you know? Fighting.