It’s absolutely stunning in Atlanta today. The sun is glorious. Everything is blooming in an explosion of color. It is as perfect a spring day as I can conjure.
Days like make it seem like anything is possible, probable even. Like the cosmos have aligned to heap blessings upon me.
Then, I watched a hearse back its way into the driveway next to mine.
And all day long, I’ve been sitting with the contradiction of the beauty of the day & the man who is suddenly absent from this beauty.
We weren’t friends, he and I. I don’t think he liked me much, to be honest. But I still found myself tearing up as I stood at the window and looked at the hearse.
Something about this death, one that I was aware of but existed wholly outside of, that happened on this perfect Spring day in Atlanta, made me hyper-aware of the contradictions, the both/and of the every day.
I am the cosmos. And yet, I am dust.
I am light. And darkness.
I am filled with wild potential. Yet, I gain the most through surrender.
I am my own. But I am bound to those I love.
I feel expansive, full of hope, energy and love. I also want to turn inward and shrink from a world that can be ugly, too.
I found out, shortly after watching that hearse back its way down the driveway next to mine, that a friend needs a miracle to beat the cancer that has dogged her for a year or more.
So, I did what I do when shit gets too real, scary and overwhelming: I laced up my shoes and I ran. I needed forward motion, to remind myself that the earth is still there.
And I prayed. Because she asked her friends to. And that’s the kind of request you do not ignore.
And, as I ran, this became increasingly clear: She deserves a miracle. Everyone deserves a miracle. Hell, we all ARE miracles.
I ran in the brilliant sunshine and I explained to the Great Mother exactly what kind of miracle my friend deserves.
It is the best kind. The most brilliant kind. The long life full of health and vitality kind.
I know it is possible.
Because we are all the cosmos, full of stars and dust, infinite and finite… and we are all unfolding miracles.
A few years ago, in the middle of the most heated, long-simmering, agonizing public situation I’ve ever been party to, a woman lobbed this doozy at me:
You aren’t God, you know.
My initial response skewed heavy toward the snark (in my own head… or more accurately, much later in the shower—which is where I generate my best after-the-fact-comebacks): Whew! Thank God. My to-do list just got a helluva lot more manageable then.
Then I moved quickly into full scale-character assassination (hers, not mine—and still, fortunately, in my own head).
But, here I am, years after the fact… and it’ll pop back into my head: you’re not God, you know. It happens kind of randomly. But, honestly, most often when I’m writing.
And then, once I’m all aboard that train, I think about my second favorite barb tossed to me by the mom with a daughter the same age as mine: Oh, yes, Jane your perfect child.
Huh. Well, that sarcasm smarts a bit.
Look, I’d love to dismiss both comments with an tsunami sized eye roll. But I can’t do that… because BOOM! They just show up in my head unannounced. Then, I feel like I need to make those little barbs some tea and invite them for a little chit-chat. Because clearly I’m supposed to do something with both these comments—neither of which were meant to be kind.
I subscribe to two schools of thought:
Everyone is my teacher.
I’m not going to take wholesale criticism from someone I wouldn’t ask for advice.
Which really is to say that I don’t have a neat answer to this, even thought I’ve spun it round & round in my head. I do know that I’m an external processor… and that I’ve already processed things (for the most part) by the time I share them in writing. The people closest to me see the messy process. And maybe I should be more transparent that things aren’t always easy, and right & wrong isn’t always apparent. Not everything is as packaged to perfect proportions as my essays can seem to be.
My writing isn’t messier because—to me—that feels like oversharing instead of vulnerability. I can admit when I fucked up. I can share hurt, loss, and fear. But only if there’s a take away—even if it’s as simple as acknowledging that we are all in this chaotic, messy, beautiful life together.
I write because I’m a huge proponent of the power of story.
But, y’all … stories have an arc.
When all I’m doing is dumping despair or anger or hopelessness all over the page—which is sometimes the case—I never hit publish. Because what I want to put into the world is hope (even in the midst of despair), love (even in loss or change or a fuck up of epic proportions), and a genuine joy and curiosity about the world.
I don’t know why the refrain about not being God keeps jumping in my head. But I do know that it’s humbling—and that seems like reason enough to keep it top of mind on occasion.
As for Jane not being perfect, well.. I take issue with that one. Jane IS perfect. All kids are perfect, just the way they are. It us, as parents, that sometimes fall short. Myself included.
I spent most of my life waiting for the other shoe to drop.
That’s a pretty shitty way to live.
It means that every time you feel real joy, there’s a pin-prick of fear… because what if it all goes away? And that tiny prick of fear builds into a swell…because how would you ever survive that loss? How would you go on?
And then that joy you felt is washed away by the rising panic that you won’t be able to hold on to that thing you love so much.
None of this ever really occurred at the front of my mind. That would have been debilitating. But it was always in the back… a quiet current of dread that snuffed out joy—or at least tamped it down to a dull roar.
I’ve stopped doing that.
Mostly.
I guess I just finally reached a point where my life had been in flux for so long—and nothing turned out like I planned, and yet I was still happy. Like, really very happy.
So, I tentatively started to trust. The universe. Myself. Joy.
And I stopped just plowing ahead with knee-jerk reactions. It’s so much easier to be balanced when I’m not off like a whirling dervish at every spike of fear or worry that arises.
I’m better at listening—to myself. To the universe.
Trusting and listening. I’m not sure either come naturally to me. But both are bringing me more joy than I felt when left to my own devices.
But the past few days I felt this… hesitation. This nagging worry way, way back in my mind… maybe it isn’t going to work out. Maybe I want too much. Maybe I’m trying to grab at things meant only for other people.
Which is, of course, bullshit.
So, I drug this hesitation in front of the Universe & laid it there. No use in trying to act like I wasn’t feeling it. The universe KNOWS things, after all.
But, like fear, this hesitancy is really vulnerable to light. As soon as I put it out there—admitted that I doubted what I was capable of, that I could bring these big dreams to fruition—I felt an internal shift. To a quieter space. A more peaceful assuredness.
The next day, I was mapping out new adventures, scoping new partnerships, and feeling wide open & ready to embrace the new possibilities that suddenly seemed everywhere.
I’m not special. Well… I guess I am and am not special in equal measure. There is no one exactly like me—but I am subject a terminal case of humanity like everyone else. But I’m so thankful I had folks along the way that taught me that breathing into joy is so much better than being suffocated by fear & dread. And that honesty is the key to reaching joy.
Acting like I have my shit together—even if it’s just me & the Universe in the audience of my one-woman-show—isn’t going to get me anywhere. But honesty… drawing fear and dread and doubt into the light… that’s magic.
It’s taken me a long time to reckon with that truth. But there it is.
I love people, though. I think they’re endlessly fascinating. But only if they’re telling me about things that mean something to them.
This made me ill-suited for office potlucks. But uniquely suited to own a bookstore.
Books delve into the heart of the things we wrestle with when we are alone. They draw out into the light the biggest questions in our existence. And they play them out in narrative form.
Amazing.
Hell yes, I want to talk about that stuff.
Yesterday, I stood in the bookstore with one of my oldest friends and one of my most adored customers talking about pandemic social awkwardness, fatigue and sorrow, and figuring out the difference between self-care & flakiness. It felt both intimate and safe. And 100% normal to talk about the things that are weighing most on our spirits right now, surrounded by hundreds of books that explore some of those very same questions: what is our place in the world? How do we impact the larger universe (even in the smallest ways)? How do we survive the shitty things and still find joy?
I’ve found myself reading a bizarre smattering of books lately and finding each of them shifting my world view a bit. As good books do.
The latest was Into the Wild. This isn’t a new book. But that’s kind of the joy of owning a (mostly) used bookstore. Sometimes you just grab what speaks to you–even if it was written over 20 years ago.
I don’t read a lot of nature/adventure books. Hell, I don’t even read a lot of nonfiction. But we ended up with a bunch of copies of Into the Wild before we opened & it caught my eye. I do love a good mystery (I always want the whys behind people’s stories). So it’d been on my TBR list (which only really exists as a figment of my imagination) for almost 2 years. The other day, I finally picked it up.
The deeper I delve into my spirituality, the more I’m drawn to being outside, to the cycles of nature, to appreciating the wild (which really means for me a well-worn hiking trail somewhere relatively close by). But, even though my experience tends toward the super safe dipping in and out of nature, its long been a dream to pick up and move into a shipping container in the middle of the woods.
This runs counter to everything about me: I like people. I thrive on the energetic thrum of Atlanta. I also like my cozy bed, flannel sheets, and fluffy duvet.
But there’s something romantic about leaving it all behind, paring down what I own into the barest minimum, and making a go of it in a place where the rhythms of the universe aren’t just apparent–they are everything.
So, Into the Wild spoke to that part of me. And it reminded me what my ego would prefer that I forget: I was once a 23 year old hell-bent on making decisions that could have cost me my life. I (like Chris McCandless aka Alex Supertramp) also saw the world in stark black and white. And I also had no use for folks who didn’t see things my way–still don’t sometimes. I’m working on it.
As I read, I swung wildly between horror at McCandless’s carelessness with the people who loved him (note: I’m in recovery & was equally careless with the people who loved me when I was in my 20s) and an ever-evolving understanding of what he might have been after. I got stuck right between wanting to believe we had nothing in common & knowing that was bullshit. Because I’ve been on a spiritual quest my whole life (except for the parts I stayed drunk primarily to fend off that same quest) and finding meaning has been the driving force in my life. Just like McCandless.
It’s a beautifully wrought book when the author can take you from contempt for a subject and wind you back around to understanding how very similar you are… and how one decision can separate the living from the dead.
It’s rare to come face to face with your own searching and longing–and then to be overwhelmed with gratitude for your own life. I made so many decisions along the way that could have cost me everything. But I emerged from the spiritual abyss of my 20s, got myself sober, and now get the immense privilege of owning a bookstore & connecting with other people (who are so often where I find the divine) every day.
McCandless never got that privilege, the ability to continue his journey and discover where he might end up.
I think, when it comes down to it, I loved Into the Wild for the same reasons I love owning a bookstore: we are all so wildly different. And yet, there are these gossamer threads of truth that hold us all together.
Late Sunday afternoon, one of my favorite customers popped into the bookstore to grab a book she’d put on hold. She’s one of those people who radiates down-to-earth, good energy. She’s a joy to be around. In fact, when I’m around her, I feel like I belong.
That’s a pretty radical, earth-shifting gift: to make people feel a sense of belonging when you hardly know them. To do that requires being deeply centered in who you are, so you can allow people the space to be who they are.
It’s what Glennon Doyle calls being both free and held… at the same time.
It’s love.
I have no problem loving the people close to me. It gets trickier the farther I move out in concentric circles… to the people who the people I love love and the people those people love… and so on and so on and so on…
It gets harder because we like to belong. But to belong, sometimes we have to make sure other people know they don’t belong. And that not-belonging has dire consequences for people. Sometimes fatal consequences.
Even in spaces that should be inclusive, we’re hellbent on excluding some people. Onjali Rauf, for instance, wrote a lovely middle grades book about a refugee boy in England and the lengths his new friends go to to understand him and help reunite him with his family. It’s a book all about inclusion and acceptance, one that points out that bigotry is born out of fear of what is different.
But let’s go back to that brilliant, light-bringing customer of mine. As we chatted about a variety of different things–both mundane & spiritual–we touched on how fraught every single action is during this pandemic. And how, even when you’re trying to make good choices, people are incredibly apt to judge. In that context I quipped, “People can be so horrible sometimes.”
To which she replied, “I can be, too.”
And that’s really the crux of it. I can be, too.
So when I think about Onjali Rauf and her exclusionary speech, I have to remember that I said precisely the same things about trans women before I knew better.
It behooves me to remember where I came from. Just because other folks aren’t on the same place in their journey doesn’t mean they aren’t redeemable. In fact, as I was reading Rauf’s speech, I just kept thinking: does she even know any trans people? Because her entire speech reeks of the ignorance of not knowing. Of fear. Of the very thing she writes about overcoming in a book to teach kids about belonging and acceptance.
But fear can be overcome. It happens every single day. In fact, it’s one of the greatest miracles of being alive.
As a person in recovery, the truth is that I’ve done awful things in my addiction. Things borne of deep fear and deep pain. But I never have to be that person again. That’s redemption.
We’re all redeemable. But no one gets there by us insisting they don’t belong. In fact, we chip away at our own souls, our own sense of peace, balance, and well-being, every time we exclude someone. Or trick ourselves into forgetting the times we’ve fucked up, the hurt we’ve caused, the deep knowledge that we’re all profoundly flawed. And profoundly beautiful.
Here’s what I remember: being about 8 years old and climbing around in the backseat while we were making the never-ending drive from South Florida to North Florida to visit my grandparents (y’all, Florida is an exceptionally l-o-n-g state. Those drives went on until the second of FOREVER). I didn’t have a seatbelt on (because the 80s) and was rifling around in some of the stuff packed on the floorboard, probably looking for a snack.
I came upon a box of maxi pads. I held them up. “Hey, what are these?”
If my mama’s eyes could’ve shot lasers, I’d just have been a little burn mark on the backseat. “Put that back,” she said, evenly but in that scary mommy’s-had-enough-of-your-bullshit way that still to this day stops me dead in my tracks.
“But what are they for?” I have no idea what got into me that made me think I should push the issue. My mom’s word was the final word forever-and-ever-amen.
But I needed to know.
“Kendra. We. Will. Discuss. It. When. You. Are. Older.,” she said, barely above a whisper, through clenched teeth.
But we didn’t discuss it later. Not really. We went to a Focus on the Family talk about adolescence where I learned 2 things: 1) Mutual masturbation was BAD (I think it had something to do with potentially catching the gay), and 2) Cocaine could kill you the very first time you tried it.
Neither of these pieces of info was particularly helpful to my 10 year old self.
My mom also handed me a Focus on the Family book about puberty and told to let her know if I had questions.
IF I had questions?!?
That was it.
Obviously, it just wasn’t something that we were going to talk about.
Now I find myself at an interesting crossroads where I’ve started menopause just as my daughter is about to have her first period (all signs point to probably in the next year for her).
But we’ve never been hush-hush around the monthly bleed. The kid was with me all the time when she was real little. She’s seen me change more tampons than I could possibly count.
Truly, she didn’t think anything about it.
And then, probably 2 years ago or so, we started talking about what the tampons were for.
You bleed from WHERE?!? she shrieked.
I had to promise it didn’t hurt. But then I had to backtrack on that–because I want to honor the fact that for some women menstruation is very painful. But I did promise that the whole thing is very normal.
But then, recently, I read Witch: Unleashed. Untamed. Unapologetic. And I began to remember what I’d long forgotten since my Women’s Studies Class approximately 100 lifetimes ago: that a woman’s cycle is powerful. It’s something to be honored and celebrated. It’s not a source of shame, but a guide to knowing.
Menstrual cycles, moon cycles, life cycles… all full of great wisdom. All a gift.
So, now I’m reading graphic novels about periods. And ordering all kinds of books on puberty that celebrate a girl’s body, and talk honestly and openly about the most natural thing in the world: becoming a woman.
And about periods.
Dear God, half the world bleeds. It’s not a shameful secret. It’s a fact of life. A divine mystery. The source of all kinds of walk-in-your-power-awesomeness.
I’m going to give my daughter a different script, a way to see her monthly cycle not as a curse but as a blessing.
“The Curse” is so patriarchal. And that’s so yesterday.
There’s a whole different way to see the world that centers a woman in her own power. And that’s the kind of inner-knowing I want to hand off to my kid.
Sunday morning, the (almost) 10 year old and I puttered about the kitchen. As coffee flowed freely from its pot into my waiting mug, I heard a tentative “Mommy?” I looked up at my child who was peering at me with a look of concern (and maybe a little gentle reproach). “Um… I think you forgot to take off your makeup last night.”
I finished making my cup of coffee (I have priorities) & trompt off to the bathroom to take a look.
Looking at my reflection, I snickered. Mascara was nigh on everywhere. “Total walk of shame makeup,” I muttered to myself, more reflex than actual thought.
And then I was like, “What the HELL?!”
Because in that moment, just right then, I realized that no one ever refers to a guy’s venture home after a wild (and possibly slightly regrettable evening) a walk of shame. A conquest, maybe. But more than likely, just a regular Saturday night.
Women, though? Walk of shame.
For me, having a little girl has made me rethink everything. The way I ingest the misogynistic bullshit society turns out. Diet culture. Body image. The words I use. Everything.
I have definitely had to reckon with shame. Because, for me, shame was persistent & pervasive in the messages I got about my body. My breasts? Not big enough. My ass? Too big. Ripe for either jokes or objectification. But always up for discussion. In middle school, I quickly got the message that eating too much showed too much need & desire. Besides it could make me fat. In high school, when all that internalized shame about my desires (which I wasn’t supposed to have (because Jesus), and I certainly wasn’t supposed to act on) and my body manifested itself in abject panic about having to literally chew & swallow food, I was either praised or scorned for being too skinny.
Holy shit, that’s a lot for one adolescent child to process.
I remember being so ashamed of my body in middle school that, on a canoe trip with our youth group–which was mostly kids older than me–I cowered in a tent too small to stand in trying to change out of my wet bathing suit, which took forever because I was shaking with fear that someone would unzip the tent and come inside. That’s how much shame I carried about my own body at 13 years old.
So what did I do with all that shame?
Spent graduate school sleeping around. Of course. Because isn’t that how you demonstrate that the shame has been put to rest? That you are the master of your own body and your own fate?
(Spoiler: No. The inverse of shame isn’t wild promiscuity*. Because, oh, there’s slut shaming, too. So I just traded one brand of shame for another.)
I was 30 years old before I figured out how to have any respect for my own body. I was 35 before I learned to love it. That was the same year Jane was born. The year I realized I had to go all in on loving myself, because parenting is a lead by example situation. And I want that girl to love herself to bits. And to take care of herself. And she’s looking at me to show her how.
As Jane enters puberty, it’s even more important to me than ever to be conscious about how I talk about my body and about sex and intimacy in general. I don’t think that sex should be a taboo discussion. Because, if it is, how is she supposed to be comfortable asking questions when she’s pondering having sex (or has had sex or her friend has told her something patently absurd about sex)?
Since the day Jane was born, we’ve been striving to teach her to think independently (except when it comes to cleaning her room. Then she should just do as she’s told). Which means that, in this instance, I’ve tried to lay out the broad spectrum of choices people make about when and with whom to have sex (high school, college, not until marriage…people they are in love with, people they’re fond of, the guy or girl on the barstool next to them). And for different people, those are all valid options.
But what she really needs to know, what would have saved me from a world of shame, is that it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. It only matters that she does what is right for her. And that can change… week to week or even moment to moment. And, when the time comes, she needs to be honest & transparent with her partners about her expectations and follow the campsite rule (which Dan Savage coined to as a guideline to protect a younger person engaged with a more experienced partner–but I think should apply to everyone).
This is 2021. And folks are still shaming women for their bodies and their sexuality. As a mother, in my house that stops with me. I want Jane to understand her inherent value as a person–not an object (no matter society’s subtle & not-so-subtle insistence otherwise). And that starts with helping Jane find her inner compass, her own True North, that will guide her in all decisions–even the ones about S-E-X.
She may be only (almost) 10, but what she hears from me will be with her for the rest of her life. The very best I can hope is that my words guide her away from shame and toward total, radical self-love.
* Nothing wrong with wild promiscuity. But it’s not an escape hatch. It’s a choice, one that you should be able to make with a clear head. It should never be just one of multiple, concurrent paths to self destruction–which was all it ever was for me. Know thyself and all.
Back in early December, my book club picked A Discovery of Witches for our upcoming book nerd-out session. And when I say “we” picked it, I really mean I nudged it forward because folks had been coming in the store to grab the book. And it’s super helpful if, as a bookseller, I can chat about (or recommend) a book that’s garnering a lot of interest (it’s a series on Netflix …. and that gives book sales a big boost. I can’t even get any of the Bridgerton novels currently. Backstockarama, that one).
What’s funny is that I’d already tried to read A Discovery of Witches twice. And hated it both times. But books are mysterious. Sometimes it just has to be the right time, the stars have to align, and the Starbucks barista has to be able to correctly spell your name before a book will really strike you. But I was determined this time to read the damn book.
Which worked out because… witches.
Witches are real big in our house right now.
The sacred feminine has held me in it’s thrall since I read Women Who Run with the Wolves when I was 20 something. Pure magic. The power & mystery wrapped up in being a woman is nothing short of miraculous. That belief runs so deep in me that when Simon told me he was going to transition, I asked him why he would want to devolve like that (Alright. It wasn’t my finest moment. But I just didn’t understand how anyone could not want to be a woman. Don’t worry–I’m clearer on things now.)
I knew I was ready to explore the sacred feminine more fully this year, so I grabbed a planner with the phases of the moon, the Wheel of the Year (I do love a holiday celebration & ritual), and some preliminary witchy spells/rituals. Nifty. That sits on my bedside table so I can jot down what speaks to me most from my horoscope each morning (It’s woowoo AF over here lately. We’re embracing all the magic).
I’d also been looking for a good intro-to-all-things-witchy nonfiction book, and one of my bookstore customers recommended Witch, which is utterly amazing by the way. Lots of applicable knowledge about everything from history to casting a circle. It’s the perfect alchemy of hang-out-and-chat-about-woman-stuff and walk-into-your-power goodness. And the cover of that book (and, yes, almost everyone judges a book by it’s cover) is like BOOM. Here I am. In all my glory & power. It’s also on my bedside table.
And, for our family hang-out tv show, we’re watching Just Add Magic. It is adorable. And, well, magic-y*. I keep piping up in the middle of the show to let Jane & Simon know when things on the show line up with what I’ve read, like when each spell comes with a price often steeper than the magic being performed (see: Threefold Law). Jane just nods and eats another Oreo. I’m sure Simon’s making a mental note about how he’ll hear all about this later, whether he wants to or not (he’s long-suffering).
Anyway, into all that witchiness came A Discovery of Witches. And it was just the escapist reading I needed. It was totally otherworldly (vampires, witches, daemons), while still being of this world (set mostly in Oxford). I got into it enough that I dreamed of vampires for nights on end (they’re complicated & I was getting really close to understanding them, y’all).
What got me (and kept me reading) was the discovery of power storyline. There’s a central thread in the book that you cannot deny or escape power that is rightfully yours. It’s been bestowed upon you, and it will find a way out. Your only choice is to harness that power and control it–or it will control you.
I mean… hello, metaphor for life.
I’m a woman who has given away her power spiritually since she was a child. I let other people tell me what to think and how to believe. And I am done with it. I am 100% down with exploring my own power, having my own dealings with the divine, and not really giving one fig what anyone else has to say about it.
Diana, the protagonist in A Discovery of Witches, has been trying to make a go of her life on her own–without magic. Which leaves her hollow, albeit highly functional. But she’s cut off from everything that makes her special, from her own birthright in a long lineage of witches. What follows in the book is a messy discovery of herself, one that she can’t escape any more even if she tries.
I can relate to back-against-the-wall-self-discovery (which is pretty much the definition of getting sober). And I was driven to know more about her backstory (none of which I can tell you, because spoilers) and her journey to her own power.
There is a romance storyline wrapped in this. Parts of it resonated deeply with me (I don’t think many of us come into our power completely on our own) and parts were highly problematic. I liked that I pushed against it as much or more than it drew me in. But, for me, that part of the storyline was an addendum (more or less).
I was thrilled to have read this one. It was all that I needed it to be right now: a place to escape but also to believe that maybe we all have more power than we realize.
It fit right into my gigantic woowoofest & it completed the trinity of witch books on my bedside table. It’s definitely all coming up witches this January.
*This is a super-cute show. And they aren’t pushing any agenda, except friendship, loyalty, and personal responsibility. Which I think we can all get on board with.
The other day, this lovely young woman came in to the bookstore and asked if we had any Christian books.
Ahem.
It was kind of awkward… because we have a spirituality section. But let’s just stay it leans heavily toward Buddhism, general spiritual pursuits (mindfulness, crystals, auras), and witchcraft. We do have a few Christian books. But they’re ones folks happened to donate. Which is to say, it’s certainly not a well-curated selection.
And, unexpectedly, as I was looking at this rather earnest young woman, I felt really bad about that.
My dance with Christianity has been long and storied. And, let’s suffice it to say that I have closed the chapter on that part of my spiritual journey. But, as often happens when you’re grieving a loss (and finally understanding that your childhood religion will no longer work for you–that it’s actually causing you great harm–is a loss), I got angry. Like, real, real angry.
So much so that I haven’t been able to not be angry when the topic of Christianity comes up. Which is problematic for several reasons:
I don’t want to be an angry person. For real. I appreciate anger. I think it can be cleansing and empowering. But then, something shifts and it begins to erode joy. To increase negativity. To make you into one of those people who can only identify what they don’t like, what they have a problem with, what is wrong with things. Those people are an energetic drag, and I have no desire to be one of them. But that’s totally what happens if anger hangs around past its expiration date.
65% of Americans identify themselves as Christians. So, you know, it comes up often.
That young woman who came in the store? I would never want to make her think that I believe her spiritual beliefs are somehow less than. That’s gross. Also, some of the people I most admire identify themselves as Christians.
All of this adds up to… you guessed it…
Time to let that shit go.
Letting go of anger on a personal level is one thing. But, also, as a liberal, queer bookseller, one of my biggest caveats is to carry books that will do no harm. Especially to the queer folks that walk up in here trusting me because they see that big Pride flag in the window & feel like this is a safe space.
So, I feel like I have to vet every Christian book that comes in here. But, again, that’s problematic, because that is not a healthy space for me. And … where would I even find time to do that?!?
See the problem?
But it is on my heart (you can take the girl out of youth group, but you can’t take youth group out of the girl) to offer folks of all spiritual stripes books that will nourish their souls and cause no harm. It’s also become apparent to me that this is the first step in letting go of anger that is no longer serving me.
So, I’d love to hear what y’all have read that falls into the Christian or Christian-adjacent category written by authors who celebrate the LGBTQ community (not just tolerate it).
P.S. I just need to take a minute and let y’all know that I’m 100% in love with Nadia Bolz-Weber. I read her Sunday Morning Prayers every week, and they break open my heart in beautiful ways. If you haven’t checked her out, she’s worth your time no matter what your faith tradition.
Because this really feels, for the most part, like a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants endeavor.
It’s not so much the “where do babies come from?” conversations… those big ones are expected. You kind of get to plan for those. And, honestly, for us that one was easy… Jane came to be in a very skilled fertility doctor’s office. In fact, she knows her origin story so well, we had to go ahead & speed up the talk about the way that many cis/het folks procreate before she started telling her friends with authority that babies were made in the doctor’s office (with a mobile of white Christmas lights above the examination table, for ambiance).
But then there are the conversations that happen as you’re driving to, say, the chiropractor on a random Monday afternoon.
“Mommy, can drinking kill you?” There she was, sat in the back seat looking super-interested in the answer to this question.
But it’s nuanced, you see. Because I’m in recovery. So, yeah, drinking could totally kill me. But I also know that the way I respond to things either provides her something to push back against (and that girl is the queen of push back) or something to think about. Depending on how I handle it.
So, I followed the instructions I keep getting (over and over again) from the Universe… I trusted my intuition.
And I was straight-up honest.
I told her how I got in trouble drinking (read: I hated myself & wanted to escape that feeling). I told her that many folks drink safely. And that she could choose to drink (or not!) when she got old enough. But you can believe that I put a plug in for sobriety being a valid life choice, whether you “have to” be sober or not. We also talked about what happens when you drink too much (acting a fool, blackouts, headaches, puke-fests).
None of this conversation was entirely foreign to her. When you’ve got a parent in long-term recovery, you occasionally bump into a drunkalog story along the way. Because it’s easier to point to what NOT to do with humor than with haranguing lectures.
I remember sitting in an AA meeting and hearing a woman in recovery declare (forcefully) that her child would never drink (as in not ever take a sip of alcohol). I thought that was a foolish premise then. Now that I have a child, I know how truly absurd that idea is.
Jane will drink. She’ll try it at least. And that’s what I acknowledged in our little car chat yesterday afternoon: she’ll make mistakes when it comes to alcohol. And she’ll regroup and make (better) decisions from there.
Not everything has to be black and white. I don’t need the kid declaring herself a teetotaler at (not quite) 10 years old. But I do want her to know that sometimes drinking is kicking back and having a beer on the beach with friends. Sometimes it is … so very NOT.
And that’s the truth for me. She’ll find her truth.
But, as is true with so many other things, she’ll only make good choices about alcohol if she’s at peace with who she is, if knows how to love herself.
