I love you, California!

I recently listened to Kevin Starr’s California: A Biography on audiobook. I have to be honest: I did not pay much attention to dates or details, but rather let the words roll over me like poetry, the poetry of California.

Los Angeles. San Francisco. Mojave Desert. Monterey. The Sierras. Santa Barbara. Salinas. Missions.  Miners. Padres. Ranchos. Joan Didion. John Steinbeck. Jack London. Death Valley. Santa Monica. Big Sur. Palm Springs. The Grapevine. Point Reyes. Sonoma. Mt. Shasta. Pasadena. Griffith Observatory. Sacramento River. Palos Verdes. Yosemite. Half Moon Bay. The Golden Gate. Napa vineyards. Catalina Island. Laguna Niguel. San Juan Capistrano. Big Bear. Half Dome. The Hollywood Bowl. The Berkeley Hills. The Pacific Ocean.

Have you ever heard such magical words?

It is a language and a poetry that holds greater sway over me than I can ever explain.

All politics aside, when he was running for governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger called California, “a golden dream by the sea,” and that is a phrase I can’t get out of my mind. I know this is a place with problems galore. I know it has poverty and inner cities and injustice, but it continues to be a place of promise and hope as well, and  I don’t know if I’ll ever wake up from the dream that is California. I just know that I wake up each morning and thank God that I live here. I just know that I’ve never been anywhere else so big, and beautiful, and bursting with life and excitement and adventure. I’ve never been anywhere else that I wanted to be as much as I want to be in California. Every time Sean suggests we move somewhere else where the cost of living is less, I reply with the adage, “I’d rather be dead in California than alive in Arizona,” and the truth is I’m only half-joking. What is it about this place?! 

I like living in a place that is bigger than me. Obviously most places other than a broom closet fit that qualification, but California is so much bigger than me: I will never master it. I will never visit everywhere I want to go. I will never know it by heart or discover all its secrets. It will always be wild and mysterious and grand, and somehow just out of my reach.

There is an energy and a gladness that fill my heart living here. Most days I just can’t believe my extreme good fortune to be here. Even my long drives in endless traffic can’t seem to dampen my enthusiasm for this place, but only serve to confirm what I already knew: this is the place to be. See? Everyone else wants to be here too. And I’m here, in California! I won’t apologize for being in love with this place. I want my children to be Californians and I want my ashes scattered here too.

I don’t know if I’ve known a happier moment than driving home at night on the freeway: the L.A. skyline gleaming on the horizon, the planes lined up to land at LAX glimmering in the sky, the mountains looming like purple shadows in the distance, a fat white moon rising over the L.A. Basin, and Blink 182 playing on the radio. That I can call this home seems a privilege too great for me, but I’ll take it, and appreciate every second of it.

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This summer we visited three new (to us) California landscapes that further confirmed my awe of this state: 

Lassen Volcanic National Park, May 2014

           Duck Lake in the Sierras, photo from SummitPost.org because I forgot my phone that day! 

                                                 Santa Catalina Island, July 2014 

I mean, really!!!!!!! Does it get better than this?!?!?! 

A Tale of Two Heroes

This past Thursday, July 31st, I attended the public memorial service for Louis Zamperini, held at his old high school in Torrance, California. Louie is a national hero, an inspiration, and just about my favorite person ever.

I met Louie in the pages of his biography, Unbroken, by the magnificent author Laura Hillenbrand, and ever since I have been wanting to write about him and this book but have been unable to find the words to express how deeply his story touched me, and how profoundly it has changed me. Unbroken is one of those books that makes you want to use your life’s savings to buy a million copies and hand them out to everyone you meet because you know the world would be a better place if everyone would just read this book! You say things to your friends like, “He was an Olympian! He lived for 47 days on a raft in the Pacific! He punched sharks! He survived years in a Japanese POW camp! He forgave his torturers! He is amazing! If you read only one book in the next five years, make it this one!” And you just hope that what you are saying will somehow intrigue them enough to read the book, but at the same time you know you are doing an absolutely terrible job of trying to tell Louie’s story because it’s just so incredible and you’re just so ineloquent.
 

It wasn’t until he died on July 2 of this year that I discovered the words I was searching for regarding Louie had already been written, years before, by the poet Maya Angelou:

“And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.”

--From the poem "When Great Trees Fall" 

I can never hope to express it better myself because those words say it all. Louie’s picture is the background on my phone because when I see him I am filled with courage and reminded that I have been given the strength to endure.

After the service, I wiped away my tears and turned my attention to celebrating another hero of mine: Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. Since I read the series for the first time back in 2008, I have made it a tradition to honor Harry’s birthday in whatever way I can—ideally by baking a cake that says, “Happee Birthdae Harry” and celebrating with friends, but sometimes just by raising a glass and offering a toast to the Boy Who Lived.

As I drove home from the memorial service, I couldn’t help but feel how fitting it was to be honoring two of my dearest heroes on the same day, but a part of me wondered if I should feel a bit guilty comparing Harry Potter, a fictional character, to a World War II veteran who actually lived and breathed and suffered terribly. Was it unfair to Louie and to his memory? Did it somehow trivialize his suffering? And why is it so easy for me to think of Harry Potter as real? Have I seriously crossed a line in being unable to distinguish fiction from reality? Should my friends and family fear for my sanity? I know I probably have friends and family who at the very least don’t understand and at the very most are deeply concerned about my extreme love of Harry Potter.

 But I don’t think I’ve lost my mind quite yet. I know the difference between fiction and reality, but I also believe there is a sense in which Harry Potter is a true story. It tells a story about things that are True: love is stronger than hate, help will always be given to those who ask, joy will come in the morning, friendship will save our lives, death will not have the ultimate victory, and Good will triumph over Evil.  I love Harry Potter so much because it tells my soul true things, and I choose to live in the truth of these stories. At the end of the day I believe that the fictional character of Harry Potter is more real than a lot of things presented to us as true or factual by the world. 

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I listened to Unbroken on audiobook, and one night after I finished the book, I went to Barnes & Noble and found a hard copy of it so that I could look at all the photos. Towards the back of the book there is a picture of Louie, in his eighties, riding a skateboard with a grin on his face. I'm telling you, I sat on the floor in Barnes & Noble and wept as I stared at this picture, which was, to me, the ultimate symbol of hope. Here was a man whose life was hijacked when the world exploded into war, a man who was lost at sea, then tortured sadistically for years, and declared dead by the U.S. government, and yet he lived. He lived a life of forgiveness and helping others. He lived to skateboard in his eighties with a smile on his face and joy in his heart. He lived to say he hadn’t been angry for 40 years. His story reminds me that no matter the evil we encounter, Good will win in the end. Our broken souls are not so damaged that they can’t be healed. We will soar and skateboard, free and whole. All shall be well. My soul needs these words of truth because life is hard, the world is sick, and I grow weary. I grow so very weary. But then I think of Louie skateboarding, and I think of Harry’s scar, which hasn’t hurt for 19 years, and my soul whispers to me, “They existed. You can be, and be better. For they existed.”

In which George Washington Helps My Marriage...

Here’s a reason why I read: to be prepared for moments like this:

It’s 1:00 in the afternoon and my husband and I have a counseling appointment** in a few minutes and I don’t want to go. In fact, I’m seriously considering not going, because I’m meeting Sean there, and if I don’t show up, he can just go without me. I don’t want to go because it will be hard, probably even painful, and it will force me to sit and look at my problems and his problems and our problems.  I’ll have to deal with stuff that I would rather just… let be and ignore and sweep under the rug.

And then I think of George Washington, my hero of the hour. I’m reading 1776 by David McCullough and I can’t get over this man, who left the domestic comforts of Mt. Vernon to lead a ragtag army in a fight for liberty against the world’s great super power at the time. 1776 starts out successfully enough with American victories at Dorchester Heights and a triumph over the British army in the siege of Boston. And then things start to fall apart as the war progresses to New York, and fumbling mistakes, poor decisions, and lack of experience result in humiliating disasters for the Continental army. And there’s George Washington, in charge of it all, unable to sleep at night in the blackness of his despair, and why didn't he just give up?

That’s what I ask myself as I read—that’s what grabs hold of my imagination and won’t let me go: a man (and a soon-to-be nation) with all the odds stacked against him, most likely feeling foolish and desperate and like he’d gotten in WAY OVER HIS HEAD and WHAT HAD HE SIGNED UP FOR, ANYWAY? (That is, at least, what I would be feeling, and though his thoughts were, I’m sure, far more eloquent than mine, he does speak, in his letters, of the desire to escape to a backwoods wigwam and live out the rest of his days in blissful anonymity with no responsibility for the fate of a people or a country or the great cause of liberty in the world.)

But he rejected the temptation of the wigwam, and kept his word to Congress and his people. He would lead. He would persevere in the noble cause because he believed it worthy, and he knew it right to honor his commitment to his country. I don’t even care that he eventually triumphed (although I suppose that does satisfy my human desire for worldly glory). I care that he put his hand to the plow, knowing all that there was to lose, and did not turn away, even at the bleakest moments. Inevitably, pride and ambition must have been involved, but if that man was acting in pure self-interest he would've been long gone in the hills of western Virginia, never to appear on the dollar bill or anywhere else in Western civilization. He had character flaws and moral inconsistencies, to be sure, but he also had the courage and determination and sheer PLUCK to keep doing what he knew was right.

Needless to say, I went to the counseling appointment, and my marriage and my character are better for it. The older I get, the one thing I want more than anything is the courage to keep doing what I believe is right, and I’m fascinated by the people throughout history who have provided exemplary models of bravery and perseverance. What I love so much about reading history is that the people we spend our time with form us. So why not spend it in the company of the great? And by great I do not mean only the dead white men who founded our country, but the men and women and children who fill the pages of good books (fiction and non-fiction) and make us better, stronger, kinder human beings by their brave and generous examples.

 “After all, a person has to remember Colonel Travis and his line in the dirt at the Alamo; a person can’t forget the pirate Lafitte, saving New Orleans in the War of 1812 when fighting for the British would've made him rich. Without such acts what good is history?”  --Leif Enger, Peace Like a River, p. 126 



**I realized, as I was preparing to post this, that there was a part of me that felt ashamed to say that Sean and I go to counseling. And then I got really, really mad at that part of myself because I don't think there is anything shameful about it. In fact, when I really sit down and think about it, working on our marriage (which is what we are doing in counseling) is something I am very proud of. It means we are committed. It means we love each other. It means we are both willing to work hard to become better people. It means we are hopeful. What being in counseling doesn't mean is that our  marriage is on the rocks, or that we're unhappy, or anything like that. It means we've got our issues and we are so thankful for the safe space that our marriage provides to strive for healing and holiness together, knowing that the other person is not going anywhere. 

New Year's Resolutions in July

I realize that July is a bit late for New Year’s Resolutions, but here’s mine anyway.

Those who know me know I read—like crazy, all the time, anything I can get my hands on. That doesn't mean I read exceptionally fast, but I manage to plug away, always reading (or listening to!) something (usually procured from the public library where my life struggle is to keep my fines under $10 and therefore keep my account active), and I usually clock in at about 75 books a year. This is good, I suppose, and I am pleased with my post-collegiate self for continuing to learn and study and sharpen my mind. However, I‘m beginning to be concerned about the way I am interacting with all these books. Am I dialoguing with them? Am I letting them sit inside me and change/form me? Or am I reading them so quickly and in such a manner that they are “in one ear, and out the other”? I’m also troubled by the amount of retention I am capable of with this style of reading.

I believe that we read for a variety of reasons, and one of the most important is personal formation. Reading has always seemed to me equivalent with growing, if done properly, and it has always felt like the most important thing I do. So I’m troubled by the possibility that I’m strictly consuming books instead of interacting with them. I want to have a record not only of what I've read, but of what I've learned and how it has formed my mind and my heart.

To that end, I present my reading project for 2014 (I've already been working on it, just not publicly):  I am going to write about the books I read.  So then, when I look back at what I read in 2014, I will have not just a list of books, but a collection of new thoughts, questions, ideas, insights, favorite memories and images, and a record of the way my life intersected with the books I was reading. I also think it will help me to read more attentively, with greater care and thoughtfulness. I don’t want to be a passive reader—it goes against all the reasons I find reading so valuable.

I think that whatever I write will look less like book reviews and more like reflections on whatever thoughts and questions the book stirred up for me. I also hope that it provides an environment in which to dialogue with others about good and great books because the absence of that dialogue is definitely the thing I miss most from college and assuredly the thing I feel most lacking in my daily life. Is there anything more meaningful and delightful than reading and talking about books? Yes, of course there are some things—but not a lot, so here goes. 

Oh, and I’ll always warn if there are spoilers, even for classics, because maybe you haven’t read Harry Potter yet, but certainly will one day.