The Breakfast Guy

Recently I've been inspired to write more in this blog. I have quite a few stories to share, and if I wait too long I will forget them all. 

Part of the reason I write reluctantly is that stories, if messed up in the writing, never seem to go back to their original poignant place in my mind. So in order not to do harm, I do no good. 

Basically I've been taking myself too seriously and just need to get on with it. 

A couple of Septembers ago I had the fun and joy of heading off to a two day Writer's Conference in Edmonton. It was fabulous - I had a hotel room to myself, I was surrounded by like-minded people, and there were books and poetry and learning hour upon hour. 

I didn't really know anyone but that was fine; I chatted and got to know a few interesting people here and there, and I like solitude when I can find it. 

The conference was a bit crowded, people-wise. Tables were put together and there was lots of walking sideways between chairs and saying, "Excuse me, sorry, can I get by here", which made lunch time rather entertaining. For breakfast we were on our own, and some went out but most stayed in the hotel and ate at the little restaurant downstairs.

 

The second morning I slept late, and found myself fairly alone, standing outside the restaurant with a few stragglers coming in or going out. A table of about six writers conversed seriously over a second or third coffee, picking through the remains of an earlier feast.

The waiter was a trifle harried and glanced at me sideways as if to say, "great, we've got another one wanting a rush order," but he sat me down at a table on the side, big enough for two, and poured me that first grateful coffee. I decided on the continental buffet. Might as well save him some stress. 

Facing the lobby area, I noticed a guy in his early 30's, dressed in dark coloured working clothes and construction boots, heading toward the restaurant. He approached confidently, but became hesitant as the waiter pointed out the lack of tables. There was absolutely nowhere to sit. He looked perplexed, blinked a few times around, said something again to the waiter, and then slowly turned toward the door. He had the reluctant stance of someone with nowhere else to go. The waiter was very apologetic. 

It happened much faster than the time it takes to relate, but I did think it over. "What would people think?" flashed through my head for 3 seconds, after which I raised my hand and called the guy over. 

"Excuse me, would you like to sit here?"

 I gestured to the empty seat in front of me. 

"I'll be gone soon", I added to convince him. Honestly I thought he would probably decline. Come in and sit down with a total stranger? Eat breakfast with said stranger? Who does this! The woman might have a screw loose. 

The key to doing crazy and interesting things is to think much more about how another person feels and much less about how you feel.

As he walked over and took the chair opposite, thanking me sincerely but not profusely, I thought, "This is going to be fine. As long as he doesn't think I'm hitting on him. Or even if he does, really." 

I took great care to be matter-of-fact. I kept the conversation light. I told him about the writers conference, and he ordered a large egg-and-bacon-filled breakfast. We kept talking.

 He had been married only a couple of years, working hard, and thinking about having kids. Or one, anyway, they would start with that and see. I agreed, one baby at a time was the way to go, if at all possible. He had a dog, a German shepherd I think, that he was very attached to, which was either with him during a stint in Afghanistan or waited for him at home - I can't quite recall. I told him about my kids and my husband, about our recent move to Three Hills, about missing the forests and working at whatever I could find, though I was a teacher by training. 

We munched our food. My fruit and raspberry muffin, his toast piled high with jam alongside dripping eggs and bacon, sausages, orange juice, the works. He was making short work of his meal.

It was funnily companionable, and I glanced around wondering if anyone had noticed this unlikely breakfasting. If they had, they probably thought nothing of it. Just two people eating. 

Later, after he had left, I thought about it. The invitation probably wouldn't have worked with just anyone. Having spent some time overseas, he would have known how to talk to strangers, how to be calm and make himself understood. He was confident but not brash. On the other side, me, who has always felt pretty comfortable meeting new people and being in new situations. It could have been awkward, or downright strange, or even slightly creepy, but it wasn't. 

He finished up, and I went back to the buffet for a few more strawberries. Or something. When I came back, he had paid and was going to savour a last cup of coffee. I learned that he was working at a construction site close by, and stopped here for breakfast almost every weekday morning. He said it kept him going all day, as he liked to work straight through. I asked a bit about the work, what they were building. We chatted pleasantly for a few more minutes.

He had to get going, though, he was expected to start work at 9 am. 

The Breakfast Guy did tell me his name, but I've since forgotten and anyway wouldn't share it, obviously. He stood up and thanked me again. Said he wouldn't have had time to find food anywhere else and would have had a miserable and hungry morning, and he was grateful. I said think nothing of it. Why should I sit here, hogging an entire table? It was lovely, I said, and I hoped he would have a good day. We said goodbye. 

When the waiter came closer I asked for the bill. The first session of the day had undoubtedly begun and I should get in there. The waiter told me that the gentleman had paid my bill, and my eyes watered suddenly. He must have done it when I was at the buffet! How very nice. I supposed we were even, now. I smiled. 

I didn't feel like leaving the table, the moment, for some reason. As soon as I stood, and plates cleared - his messy egg and hash brown dishes, my small plates of crumbs,  two empty coffee cups - the story would be over and everything tame and sane once more. 

I walked into the conference and sat quietly, listening to the speaker. I felt a bit outside of things.  No one knew about my breakfast story, that a complete stranger had become a friend. I felt warm inside, like my heart was really in there. I thought of how amazing people and life can sometimes be. If you see them, that is, and invite them to sit at your table. 

The Beautiful and the Damned

      "Life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat; the redeeming things are not happiness and pleasure but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle." F. Scott Fitzgerald

The impetus for F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel, This Side of Paradise, was the pursuit of love. Zelda, his golden girl, had given up on him, broken off their engagement, and he was desperate. He went for it - reworked and finished the novel, which was very successful, and eventually won back her heart. 

It is probable that Fitzgerald continued at heart a romantic, which partially explains his idealism and disenchantment. Partly, however, he was a thinking man, and any realistic analysis of life leaves one without illusions. 

The genius of F. Scott Fitzgerald is his candid, wry appraisal of human nature, coupled with his painting of scenes that you can smell and taste...stale wine and damp New York streets...of atmospheres that pervade your own. His vocabulary is better than mine. I mean, actual light years beyond the simple tripe I have pedaled. The way it is fashionable to write these days is like a shop-window cupcake, too saccharine and very stale. 

In the spirit of fashion, I also take myself much too seriously. I cringe and turn from the painful gap between the real and ideal. I am only a late and sporadic blogger of 2009 or so. There are ten different ideas that bloom against my mind windows, and fade and fall while I'm driving, or talking, or doing the supper dishes. If I do recall them, and type madly in a quiet moment, they seem ridiculous when I've printed and fleshed out their fragile bones. Lumpy, gawky clowns, missing essential body functions. Yet I am creator and label them my own.

At the moment I'm about three-quarters through Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and the Damned, about a self-absorbed couple, early 1910's, who dissolve from leisure and drink and boredom. "A devastating portrait of the nouveaux-riches...reckless ambition and squandered talent.." reads the eloquent dust jacket.

 

There is a preciseness of vocabulary and efficiency of phrase in Fitzgerald's works that sums up possible pages of thoughts into one or two neat sentences. 

The quote that follows is an example of his extraordinary potency with language:

'So Gloria's heart was very bitter, for in one week, on a prolonged hysterical party during which Anthony whimsically divested himself of coat, vest, and shirt in a theatre and was assisted out by a posse of ushers, they spent twice what the grey squirrel coat would have cost.'

However - what is it all about? Why is this novel from an older era resonant for this day in 2015?

It seems that all actually good books tell us what we know but are afraid to face: that life is a wasting, patronizing business. 

Also, that not one of us really knows what we are doing.

A person tries their level best against all odds, and works and sacrifices and slaves, and no one cares or understands them. They have dug hard for purpose, and hold it tightly in their grasp. They cannot look away from it, or the vast surrounding field of holes dug, of purposes left, missed, or squandered, will lessen theirs somehow.

Another is given too much. Opportunity, money, encouragement, and still they will not lift the spade. Resisting nothing, holding everything, praised by all, they never see a need. And yet eventually they realize no one cares for them either. Each is preoccupied only with his own purpose and meaning, whether found in someone else or chipped from the bleak world. 

This is what Scott Fitzgerald lays out so relentlessly in his novels. He makes all of us to be fools, and does not leave himself out of it. Therein comes the gentle wit, the unapologetic humor that knows too well the folly and destruction of human nature, and yet says, "here we are!" We do not understand what we are, though we share together in life's struggle.

Anthony and Gloria do nothing - but they do it so beautifully.... and so resolutely, we applaud them. Though we deride their idiotic choices and wish they could shake themselves from the stupor, we understand why they cannot. We have ourselves noted the pull of apathy's self-destruction. We have resisted, filling all the hours with noble purposes and work, practices and plans, and still wondered what it was all for.

Perhaps it is faithless of me. I am, after all, a Christian. I have been set free and given the greatest love and greatest purpose of all. I know this! I do not take it for granted.  And still I know full well the futility, and wonder what it is all for. What else do we have? But to struggle and hope, dream dreams, and use our short days the best we can. 

If they, if I, could only stop wondering and guessing at the meaning of life for five minutes, perhaps I, and Fitzgerald's sad characters, could enjoy it. 

A recurrent theme is the world's capacity for war, and famine, and poverty and injustice. There is no God in Fitzgerald's America, only an impersonal and careless force, an impotent entity. Of God he writes, "It is a truth set at the heart of tragedy that this force never explains, never answers - this force intangible as air, more definite than death."

And so he accomplishes what a host of others have in more recent times, whole books being written and whole movements based on this: that God cannot be acknowledged but he must be blamed. It is in fact, in this enlightened day and age, a prerequisite for intelligence - God must be denied and discussed only cynically and in the third person. They had a great handle on it in 1920. We haven't really improved upon this piling on of all the grief of the world on God, and never giving Him the dignity of speaking for Himself, lest ye be judged. It has simply become more common, in 2015. 

As if He had not borne all grief. 

Still, I join humanity in asking what it all is for. 

I am enjoying this novel immensely; it helps me to think. I can enjoy it, but I cannot analyze it apart from my beliefs in a purely secular fashion. It wouldn't do any justice to the depth of either vision. 

   "I don't care about truth. I want some happiness."

...says the glamorous main character, Gloria Patch. 

Now, where have (or is it haven't?) I heard that before?

 

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Writers Galore

       

       When I was a girl, yesterday, I had this tendency for great expectations. Greater, higher, loftier than humanly possible expectations about birthdays, holidays, and Sunday School picnics.
There would be magic on my birthday. Fairies must fly in, gifts wrapped in gold-leaf and music from a pan flute as I danced with the young birches over the lawn. Holidays would be perfect - restful, fun, with merry-go-rounds, endless marshmallow campfires, and family laughter.
The Sunday School picnic would be just like Anne of Green Gables, with flowers, ice cream, a best friend, and beating boys at the three-legged race. I really believed all this.

 Now, having explored my aged personality, I know all about the boring facts related to Idealism and the Limits of Reality. I've also learned small lessons regarding mosquitos, the stationary nature of trees, and long rainy road trips with young siblings. As time went on I discovered the colour leaching out of all the glorious expectations, and learned that fantasy, though fantastic, is fantasy. I looked in the Wardrobe. I felt all the way back - reached for tree branches and the shock of snow - always, always the flat wall. Not even when I closed my eyes. Perhaps my parents wondered why their clothes were often askew on the hangers, or they simply rolled their eyes at each other's apparent carelessness. They didn't remember about Wardrobes, at least not in the cold light of day.

Growing up some, I settled in, realizing that presents were simply things bought at stores and that holidays and picnics were best anticipated. New experiences, however, were still surrounded in wonder and softly falling glitter. My cynicism surely could not extend to boyfriends, first dates, new jobs, college. Alas, the glitter showed itself to be simple dust, turning slowly in the glare of street lamps. It wasn't that life was so awful, it was that the expectations were so HIGH. And so, disappointment. Disappointment multiplied can lead to a generally cynical attitude toward everything. The protective callus forms over the raw flesh, does it not?

This past weekend was an exception. I went, finally and with trepidations and anticipations, to a Christian writer's conference in Edmonton. Oh, there were the usual realizations that workshop speakers are, in fact, mere mortals. And that not everyone who is a good writer is an effective teacher. And it was crowded; we were sitting mostly in each other's laps and if you happened to leave your purse sticking out under your arm there was likely a human domino situation. Yes, we were tired and yawning, brains stuffed and overflowing.  Ah, but we were learning about writing! And there were BOOKS! Stacks, plethoras, mounds even of books, written by the mere mortals that paced the conference halls and rode in elevators with me, ME, of all people! And there was food! And the food was good! And free coffee!

Picture the crowning moment. I'm alone, sprawled over one of two queen beds in a clean white hotel room, surrounded by pens and notebooks and new books, pillows behind me, reading and writing and revelling. I was just inspired by a day of listening to seasoned writers pour out their hearts. I've been encouraged and cheered on by spiritual advisors I respect and admire. Of course, they don't actually know if I can write a note on a napkin, but I know I can.
 
Alas and alack, it was glorious. Expectations firmly grounded in reality, this time, anticipation was free to soar. I soaked it all in like a kid on the last sunny day at the beach. I listened, talked to interesting people from all over Canada, I took notes, I laughed. I may have insulted a Rider's fan from Saskatchewan. I had breakfast with a perfect stranger. I re-warmed ideas that had been left to congeal far too long on the back burner.
Life at the moment is hectic and I may never have that perfect time to write. I may never be published, and honestly that is alright. I have been to the top of the lookout and I saw the ships in the harbour, white sails unfurled.

As I walked away from the hotel, across the parking lot to my car and thence home, I didn't have to turn around to know there was glitter, real and sparkling, in the air.

  *   .    .      *  .  +   *       .     . .. . *     *     .   . * . . *   +  ..   .  * +   ..  .   .    . * . * 

The Rewards of Risk

Is risk rewarding? Well, consider moments and events you are proud of in your life. Or those times that shaped your character. Risk, I'm betting, was heavily involved. Today is January 1, 2013. What do you want to change this year? What do you need to risk to do it? I'm guessing there is something. Perhaps you'd like to spend your time more wisely. Or start something important, even though you're afraid you might not finish it.

One thing I've learned from observing others, past and present, is you become who you want to be by DOING it. Film-makers make films, even if it is running around your neighborhood making a documentary of the sad state of lawn maintenance in the 21st century. Eventually you might be Peter Jackson filming The Hobbit. The great musicians, dancers, poets, chefs, and architects sang, danced, wrote, cooked, and designed until they were tired, frustrated, worn-out. I'd like to be a writer, but I'm often afraid to write. I may read it back and it will sound trite, or ridiculous, even grammatically riddled with errors. Bah! I can't be a writer. Foolish thought. Besides, my bookshelf is jammed with wonderful writers! Who needs another one on God's green earth!
..............This, my friends, is what I tell myself. So can you relate? Well, even if I'm not meant to be a writer, if I don't risk it then I won't know. I won't be able to move on from there. See what I mean? Like stepping-stones across a stream. There's a bit of a free-fall over the water while leaping to the next rock, but it's the only way to get there. A moment, climbing the mountain, when you are suspended over the face of the cliff and eternity, but it's bloody uncomfortable just hanging on to where you are all the time.

Risk is not ONLY for the young, though it is for the young, too. When I was younger I had fire in my veins. I did everything, anything, didn't worry about it. If only one could combine the confidence of youth with the experience of years! Instead it seems the experience of years holds back the horses at the gate and even locks them in the barn now and then, tossing and charging until the spirit is broken. It's a sad day, when you unlock the door of your dreams and find they have no life left in them.

So. As a challenge to myself for this fresh new year, if I want to do something, I'll DO it, not just think about it. If I hope to be something, I'll BE it. Perhaps badly, maybe not as well as I'd hoped, but better than hanging on for dear life to the top of the fence. Whatever happens, let's keep fighting. So often I've wanted to give up and let the world go on without me. Not dying but dying inside, a passive face that smiles and hides and feels nothing. This year I've been too close to that abyss, and I want to struggle away from it, and carry on with a dream or two in hand.

Keep going friends, risk is worth it in the end.

Starting over new

This year is different. In good ways. Not teaching, trying to find time to do things that are important, I feel like I have escaped, like a P.O.W. out of the camp called Tyranny of the Urgent!
 Not to draw any real comparison with a concentration camp as that would be...well, terrible and foolish at best, but the"WORK MAKES FREE"
 on the gate is pretty close. It seems the words are branded on my psyche, because though I've left and headed in the other direction, I see them in front of my vision always...I still catalogue my day by all the things accomplished. Even things that don't matter one whit.  However.... if you sat me down and asked me, I would say that accomplishing STUFF isn't important. People are important.  Family is important. Watching the stars come out of a midnight-blue sky is important (if not essential), right up there with rose-smelling and baking cookies for the fun of it.
 So where is the disconnect? What's my problem?    Honestly -- when I figure it out I'll tell. What I DO know is that even though lots of life things, busy things, have come up to take my time away, I feel so much different.
                                 Not so panicked, not wishing everyone would go far away and leave me alone, not like the funky card I saw the other day on the card rack with the silver glitter writing and pink heart on a blue background that boldly swirled, "I hate everyone but YOU" ...but that's funny you have to admit...

Writing is great. I think of ideas all the time and never get them down. How very inefficient  of me!!One idea is writing devotions, based on scripture I've been reading. As a high school teacher responsible to do devotions and pray with students every morning I found that there is not much out there. A virtual desert. Too many feel-good, one-verse-taken-out-of-context, moralizing devotions and not much that really helps a person meet with God, which is kinda the POINT. So, on the advice of someone I have respect for, I'm going to post the devotions for people to read and comment on, and if any readers (which I am quite aware at this point there really aren't any, ha ha, better work on that) have ideas or criticisms, witticisms, comments, and so on, then that could be very helpful. And so. I will now attach one.

Morning Devotions

 

READ Acts 1:1-8

What is the last thing you would do before going away on a long trip? Perhaps you’ve been on a missions trip, or traveled far from home, or been a camp counsellor for the summer.  Or maybe you’re dying to take a trip away from home and you can imagine it in your mind’s eye… What would you say or do just before leaving? Not a quick “Bye, Mom!” as you rush out the door for school; rather, a hug, an “I love you and I’m gonna miss you like crazy, and please don’t forget to feed my fish, and PLEASE don’t let my little sister play in my room! And I promise I’ll let you know as soon as I arrive, yes, and I love you mom, you’re the best mom in the world and don’t you forget it”. Okay, perhaps I’m fantasizing a little as a mom here, but you get it. Luke writes about Jesus being taken up to Heaven, leaving earth for a good long while. 

In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.”

The last thing Jesus did before leaving was give the disciples important instructions THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT! Did you catch that? The Holy Spirit was going to be with them! He was the new instruction giver.  Just a little while before, while they were sitting around a table eating, Jesus had given them a last command, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.” What is this essential command about? Yep, the Holy Spirit. He is the promised gift. And what better gift could there be? A bit like if your dad was going away on a month long business trip, and as he’s leaving he hands you a portable screen and says, “Here, look at this. I will have a camera on me the whole time, linked to this screen. If you want to know what I am doing or what I’m thinking at any time, just look at this screen and I will be there, in real time, and we can talk.” Well!! It would almost be like he was still there with you! 

 Just before Jesus was taken up into the air in front of them, those bewildered and blinking disciples, he said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you”.  So don’t worry, don’t panic, God is still here. God the Holy Spirit is with you, you are not alone. Over and over Jesus reminds them. He could tell what they were thinking. He knew their hearts as he knows your heart today.

Are you feeling overwhelmed and alone? The Holy Spirit is with you. Do you not know what to do next? The Holy Spirit will instruct you. Are you feeling weak in your faith? You will receive power from the Holy Spirit. This was a significant moment for the disciples, seeing their beloved Saviour and friend leave. What did He say as He left them? The Holy Spirit is coming. He is with you. Just as he is with his disciples today. Here and now, today, listen to the Spirit. Get your instructions from Him. Know the power of his presence to give you the boldness to do all he is asking you to do.

 

Pray. Come Holy Spirit, God with us, lead and guide us in this hour and this day.  May we not feel alone or discouraged, but know that You are with us and You are all we need. Let your presence fill us and empower us with strength and courage to go on, to do the will of God and live for Him, until the day Jesus comes again. Amen