fail

"Mary, you're such a woman," he said, and I apologized.

"I'm more of a shoulders girl myself."

First, I noticed the trash can full of soggy tissues, positioned next to his bed as if he might vomit into it. He sat up a little when I walked into the room and I sat down next to him on the bed. A roll of toilet paper lay on the other side of his pillow.

"What'd you bring?" he asked me.

I placed my palm on his forehead, holding his hair back. He was warm, but I didn't tell him I can't tell the difference between normal body heat and a fever.

"Ibuprofen," I told him and ran my hand through the rest of his hair.

I'd had to ask around to find the ibuprofen. I never have any because I never need any, but people ask me for it quite a bit and I'd like to be able to give them some. Maybe I should just buy a bottle next time I'm in town.

Another gut reaction surprised me. A few hours earlier, he told me he was sick and I felt that same protective instinct toward him that I felt toward my sleeping friend just two days ago. I was upset and ready to take the sinus infection from him and spend the day curled up in bed with a headache so he didn't have to.

I've felt this way toward my grandmother before she died, toward my uncle, toward my sisters, toward my family in general, but I want to know why I didn't have this gut reaction when the plague swept through my hall. Maybe because there were enough women-friends and boyfriends to take care of everyone and there wasn't much I could do--I don't have any drugs, I can't tell if you have a fever, and maybe it wasn't my place to help. All I have to offer is attention, physical contact, and generic "sleep well stay warm drink lots of water" sort of advice. Why didn't I at least want to help?

The answer to any question about a personality flaw or sinful habit is either "I'm afraid" or "I don't love strongly enough" or both (usually both), so I'm not going to analyze this any more than I have. I'll just take it as another reminder to work on love and courage.


Funny. Today Fr. Iuani's homily was about shouldering burdens for people. That's two homilies in a row that have been about what was already on my mind.

can't sleep

I was cramming for a current events quiz, something I have to do most Fridays around lunchtime, when I saw him. His hair, too long for his taste, was the color of Kalkaska sand, and it had been too long since he'd shaved the stubble from his chin and cheeks. His eyes were brown, his boots were tan, and his coat was desert camo. He adjusted the strap of his bag, an aberrant twilit blue, on his shoulder. I tilted my head and he reacted to my expression.

"Is everything alright?" I asked. "You look--"

He'd been up late writing a paper, then up later fighting the computer and rewriting the paper. Some of his strength was missing. He set his bag by the fireplace and covered it with a heap of beige, topping it off with his glasses. I thought briefly about moving them but couldn't think of a safer place. He asked me to wake him up at 12:40, then buried his face into the crotch of a couch and tucked his toes under the armrest.


I remember asking friends to wake me up. It's happened once or twice this year, but last year, it was chronic. I remember the first time I'd been up late with a paper. I asked Will to wake me up for a 10 o'clock, expecting to wake up at 9:45, and curled up in a chair in the EAR. He woke me up at 9:50 and I panicked. When I stepped out of the chair, I discovered my left foot to be asleep, through my calf and up into my thigh. I put my right shoe on and hobbled to class as quickly as I could, my left sock snagging on the concrete. That night I sprawled out on Amanda and Georgia's floor in Mac, my ears tuning in and out of the Cowboy Bebop playing on someone's computer. "I love how Mary's just so peacefully and angelically asleep," I heard Liv say.

"No," Will said, "she looks more like she's passed-out drunk asleep."


I ate quickly then sat in the chair next to my sleeping friend, clicking through the Washington Post. It was 12:30. I felt a jab in my ribs. I looked up. A red coat.

"I'm looking for something physical, something tangible," he said.

Jeff stole something and you think I have it, I thought.

"Can I have the Constitution reader?"

Facepalm. "I left it in my room," I said.

"There's still time before one."

"I have to wake Jeff up in 10 minutes."

"Ask Asa to wake him up."

I did. I wrapped up in my giant blue coat (and saw my roommate: "are you going back to Benzing?" I asked her, but she was headed to the library) and escorted my friend down the stairs and out the door. I left, but left my conscience on the chair. Something in me reached back.

A few steps outside I realized it was Friday and men are allowed in rooms after noon. I told him where the reader was, asked him to drop off my Latin book, checked my watch (12:36) and hurried to my watch. He was just waking up when I reached the couch.

My gut reaction surprised me. I felt like I had utterly betrayed him by leaving him alone while he slept. I felt like I should have been there making sure nothing disturbed him while he lay there allowing his strength to seep back into him. Apparently something had. I had failed.

I scrambled. "Go back to sleep," I told him. "You have five minutes."

He declined, yawned, and pulled himself up further.

All I could do was move out of his way when he walked around the table.

muddling

Mom tells me that most of life is you muddle through the best you can, and she's right. You aren't going to get everything right. You won't always know what's right. You're going to mess up badly. You're going to get hurt and you're going to hurt other people. That's not what life is about, but it's a big part of life. And you just have to deal with it.

But love, if it is real love, conquers even this.

chocolate chip courage

Sometimes love means baking cookies for your friend. Sometimes love means telling your kid he can't eat eight cookies at five o'clock because they'll mess up his appetite for dinner. Sometimes two people are holding cookie jars and they want nothing more than to give each other cookies but it's dinner time.

Freedom doesn't mean license, and patience is a virtue.

Maybe you want someone's approval, and maybe they're telling you to hurry up. And maybe they think you're walking slowly because you're afraid, and maybe you are afraid. But there is a difference between courage and recklessness, and sometimes running is foolish. Sometimes it takes more courage to walk slowly and let them think you a coward than it does to run.

Maybe recklessness is cowardice, merely fear of disapproval.

It isn't time yet to run.

underground woman

The snow was like an early December snow--not too cold but beautiful. Snow fairies fluttered beneath the streetlights. [G] was hungry and I didn't want to go to sleep just yet, so we walked up the hill, making our way up the narrow path that had been tromped out before us, connecting the ill-designed sidewalks. I hopped in front of him and followed his right and left movements, cutting him off so he couldn't walk next to me.

He laughed. "Mary, you're so light I can just do this--" and I felt his hands beneath my ribs and when my feet hit the ground I was behind him. I laughed and slammed into him, but he kept his balance.

I thought for a minute.

"Mary, stop thinking about it and have fun," he said.

Then I got shoved into the snow.



Dr. Jackson says that the secret of the angels is this: obey before you hear. And I think as imago Dei that's what we're supposed to do--if we are ourselves, if we allow ourselves to be who we really, truly are--then we will obey naturally. We won't have to anal-yze "God says to do X, and God is all-knowing and loves me completely, so X is in my best interest." We won't have to think about it, we will just do it habitually. It will be cemented in our brains the way it's cemented in to brush away the hair that falls into our eyes--we just do it and don't think about it.

We used to be able to do this naturally, but our nature was wounded in the garden.

How can we do right when we don't know what right is? Sometimes we don't know. Sometimes we have to take a leap of faith--say a prayer and go with our gut and hope we do right, but know that if we do wrong while trying to do right, things will turn out okay in the end. St. Francis of Assisi built a church.

Sometimes we do need to think--to examine our conscience and find out where we continually screw up. Then make an effort to create habits of doing right. If you habitually do right when you know what's right, your gut instinct is more likely to be correct when you don't know what's right.

The basketball player who thinks about his shooting in practice doesn't have to think about his shooting during the game. He just does it.

So if I practice love--practice kindness, practice courage, practice patience--then my gut instinct is more likely to be right. And if it's wrong, well, I've done my best and He can't really hold me accountable, can He?

for you folks at home (and elsewhere) part II