Annie's Anecdotes

Annie's Anecdotes "Not all who wander are lost" --J.R.R. Tolkien tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762158 2007-04-16T01:13:11Z Blogger

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true Annie 2007-04-05T23:06:00-07:00 2007-04-06T06:09:02Z 2007-04-06T06:07:11Z tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762158.post-117583963175097219 <content type="application/xhtml+xml" xml:base="http://www.bither-terry.org/annie/index.html" xml:space="preserve"> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">I’m visiting my mom in Manteca for a few days and staying in my grandmother’s old room. Seeing a photograph my mom found of Grandma punctured the grief I’ve kept stifled in an airtight package since February. Seeing her purse, full and unopened, her handwriting, feeling the weight of her special foam pillow: these are the things that make grief seep out and fill the room, following me silently until I sit down with it. So last night I thumbed through my journal entries from the days leading up to and following my grandmother’s death. And I realized that I’ve already begun to forget all that I hoped to gain from loss, the ways in which I thought that my perspective, my relationships, and ultimately my life would be changed. So I’ve decided to revive this long forgotten blog and periodically submit excerpts from my journal entries in the hopes that it will help me remember what I’ve learned, and maybe learn more, and perhaps even help whoever might read this to do the same. I’ll begin with some entries from when I was staying with and caring for my grandma in her home in Rancho Cordova before she sold her house and moved in with my mom last June... November 8th 2005 I held my grandfather for the first time today. It was always the other way around because he was big and I was small. Now his remains are in a cardboard box in my grandma’s closet, right next to the Christmas cards and above a package of Depends. Grandma still has them—the Depends—from when she was so sick and in the hospital two years ago. It’s amazing how she rallied. Does her still having those diapers suggest that she recognizes that she could need them again or is it just another example of hoarding inspired by the Great Depression? At any rate, I was cleaning out her closet when the box caught my eye. I don’t know why; it’s just an ordinary cardboard box. I guess it was the envelope on top that grabbed my attention; it’s thick and I thought maybe it contained instructions for what was inside the box, which I guess it does in a way… but a box full of ashes was not what I’d expected. I thought it would be more keepsakes, like earlier today when Grandma had me take another box out of her closet and choose a teacup and saucer. That box said: “For each grandchild to choose one” but this one said: “In this container are the remains of John R. Bither.” There were more words after that but they blurred with the realization of what I was holding. As I felt the box’s weight sink into my hands, I had the urge to open it up, push my hand into his ashes, scoop up a handful and let them trickle back down. I remembered what Anne Lamott wrote about how ashes are mischievous, sticking to your fingers, blowing in every direction but the one you want them to go in. I pictured myself opening up that box and making a royal mess in Grandma’s closet: ashes falling all over. Maybe I’d sneeze. Or cough. Or simply let that heavy box slide from grasp. Those thoughts terrified me, but at the same time part of me wanted to set my grandfather’s ashes free, not to scatter them, though that’s the verb people always seem to use, but to snow them, to toss them up in the air and let them spiral to the ground. I wanted that box to be empty and somewhere other than next to the Christmas cards and above the Depends. I wanted the ashes to snow so much that it would be like that picture of Grandma and Papop in our driveway in Chugiak in their parkas, except everything would be grey and silver and white like Papop’s hair and we would remember. We would remember and our remembering would set us free. </div> </content> <draft xmlns="http://purl.org/atom-blog/ns#">false</draft> </entry> <entry xmlns="http://purl.org/atom/ns#"> <link href="https://www.blogger.com/atom/6762158/113584851612518711" rel="service.edit" title="" type="application/atom+xml"/> <author> <name>Annie</name> </author> <issued>2005-12-29T01:27:00-08:00</issued> <modified>2005-12-29T09:32:34Z</modified> <created>2005-12-29T09:28:36Z</created> <link href="http://www.bither-terry.org/annie/2005/12/there-should-be-some-sort-of-test-you.html" rel="alternate" title="" type="text/html"/> <id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762158.post-113584851612518711</id> <title mode="escaped" type="text/html"/> <content type="application/xhtml+xml" xml:base="http://www.bither-terry.org/annie/index.html" xml:space="preserve"> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> There should be some sort of test you have to pass in order to own a car with an alarm. In fact, I think the test should be mandatory in order to even drive a vehicle equipped with one of the most obnoxious inventions on the face of the planet. And maybe old people should just be automatically denied the right to have a car alarm. Don’t get me wrong; I love old people. Really. Just not old people with car alarms. Besides, they could take the test to get a car alarm if they really wanted to, but I think most old people would be relieved. I mean, old folks always seem to forget that the car alarm going off is actually theirs so they stand there paralyzed in fear of an imminent nuclear attack until they suddenly realize that that heinous sound is, in fact, coming from their new car. Then they fish around in their purse or their pockets for about five hours before finally finding their keys at which time they start randomly pushing buttons and hoping one of them will work. Kind of like when I was in junior high and I tried to be cool and hang out with the boys and play video games like Street Fighter II. I’d just push as many buttons as I could as fast as I could so my character would jump and flail around, brandishing her weapons like someone with Tourrette’s on crack. Sometimes this strategy actually worked and I’d win but it was considerably less effective while playing Mario Kart. I’d always end up falling off some ledge or stuck against a wall and the angry guy in the cloud would come pick me up and face me the right way so I could do it all over again. Maybe that’s all deeply symbolic and the angry cloud guy is actually God and getting turned around in Mario Kart is an allegory for my life and being trapped in a vicious cycle of meaningless existence. Or maybe I just suck at Mario Kart. But back to car alarms. The thing about car alarms is, they’re not just annoying; they’re ineffective. Sure they got people’s attention when they were new and the first few times you heard one you pulled over to the side of the road thinking it was an ambulance (or in the case of a really obnoxious car alarm a herd of ambulances). But seriously, when a car alarm goes off these days who thinks, “Gee golly someone’s car is getting stolen! I better call the cops!” If anything, you might hope that the offending car actually gets stolen. When I pointed this out to my brother today he claimed he was too “civic-minded” to align himself with my nihilist thinking. But what if the car gets stolen and the new owner is... how shall I put this... civic-minded enough to disable the car’s alarm before smuggling it out of the state? Well that crook would be a hero in my book. Oops! Gotta go! I’m in the middle of a coffee shop and my cell phone’s going off. At least I think that’s my cell phone... is that my ring? Let me dig through my purse and find out... Oooh there’s that lip gloss I was looking for... </div> </content> <draft xmlns="http://purl.org/atom-blog/ns#">false</draft> </entry> <entry xmlns="http://purl.org/atom/ns#"> <link href="https://www.blogger.com/atom/6762158/113533227796956823" rel="service.edit" title="" type="application/atom+xml"/> <author> <name>Annie</name> </author> <issued>2005-12-23T01:59:00-08:00</issued> <modified>2005-12-30T00:32:40Z</modified> <created>2005-12-23T10:04:37Z</created> <link href="http://www.bither-terry.org/annie/2005/12/few-times-week-i-get-emails-from-man.html" rel="alternate" title="" type="text/html"/> <id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762158.post-113533227796956823</id> <title mode="escaped" type="text/html"/> <content type="application/xhtml+xml" xml:base="http://www.bither-terry.org/annie/index.html" xml:space="preserve"> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> A few times a week I get emails from a man named Pastor Steve, but my inbox tells me they’re from “Unfolding Light.” I like this juxtaposition of words because when I think of light unfolding I imagine dough in a big pottery bowl being kneaded and folded, kneaded and folded, slowly being made ready for baking, for transformation. Imagining light as unfolding makes it seem less threatening because though I revel in light’s ability to brighten, sometimes I’m not ready for the stark clarity it brings. Light can overwhelm, penetrate and blind. I long for a light that is more subtle and gentle, whose glow grows gradually. Today, the day after winter solstice, is the day of reversal. Finally our days will become longer, filled with greater and greater light, not suddenly but slowly. Nature can teach us much if we let it and I hope that the measured movement of our planet as it orbits the sun will teach me to be more patient with myself, my health, and my life. As they say in Senegal: “Ndank ndank muy japp gollo ci nyaay”: Slowly slowly you catch the monkey in the bush. I admit that I love this Wolof saying first and foremost because it’s fun to say and I enjoy how nonsensical it seems in my current context. I mean, I haven’t really come across too many monkeys out in the bush during the two years that I’ve been back in the United States! Yet I can’t think of a place (or time) where I’ve needed this proverb more. Ndank ndank. Slowly slowly. Or as Simon and Garfunkel put it in the 59th Street Bridge Song: <div style="text-align: center;"> Slow down, you move too fast You’ve got to make the morning last Just kickin’ down the cobble stones Lookin’ for fun and feelin’ groovy </div> But back to Pastor Steve, a.k.a. Unfolding Light, and a recent email he sent entitled “Unanswered prayer.” In it he writes, “...Advent is a season in which we spend some silence...contemplating this mystery: that though some prayers seem unanswered, in fact God has heard, and an answer is even now unfolding, though we may not recognize it, for it is not what we are looking for.” He goes on to advise: <blockquote>Offer your unanswered prayers to God. Be mindful of your longings. Do not forget them or minimize them. Don’t give up on them. They are in your heart for a reason. Whether your yearning is wistful or painful, whether your unanswered prayer is hopeful or mournful—bear it to God. God has heard. Wait in silence for the answer to unfold. It will likely be something unexpected. But in it, you will have a place in God’s salvation of the world. </blockquote> Salvation...what an ugly word! At least it is for me because I associate it with fundamentalist Christian theology that maintains that Jesus is the only way, that you have to accept Him as your “personal lord and savior” in order to achieve salvation and escape fiery damnation. A whole lot of bunk, if you ask me. After all, to what degree do we really choose our religion anyway? Culture, family, friends: these are just a few of the myriad of influences contributing to our religious and spiritual understanding of the world. I consider myself a Christian Agnostic in a very literal sense (Christian means “little Christ” and Agnostic means “without knowledge”). I’d like to live my life like Christ lived his, but I also believe that I am profoundly lacking in the knowledge or even the ability to comprehend the great mysteries of the universe. The truth of the matter is I don’t believe a lot of what many people hold as the major tenants of the Christian faith, but it’s the way I’ve been raised and consequently I’ve learned the lingo, the stories, the rituals. Christianity has become a part of me; it’s one of the lenses through which I see the world. I’d like to expand that lens, to explore other faiths and seek salvation, but with a new understanding of the word. Afterall, "salvation" comes from the latin word "salis" meaning health (I found this out when I attended First Unitarian Church in San Jose with my uncle Bryan Thanksgiving weekend). As I struggle to unfold my light, my salvation, and my health, I’ll keep in mind the words with which Pastor Steve closed his email: “Pray, rejoice, and wait.” Ndank ndank. </div> </content> <draft xmlns="http://purl.org/atom-blog/ns#">false</draft> </entry> <entry xmlns="http://purl.org/atom/ns#"> <link href="https://www.blogger.com/atom/6762158/112970750906081225" rel="service.edit" title="" type="application/atom+xml"/> <author> <name>Annie</name> </author> <issued>2005-10-19T00:35:00-07:00</issued> <modified>2005-10-19T07:39:38Z</modified> <created>2005-10-19T07:38:29Z</created> <link href="http://www.bither-terry.org/annie/2005/10/i-went-on-my-first-blind-date-tonight.html" rel="alternate" title="" type="text/html"/> <id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762158.post-112970750906081225</id> <title mode="escaped" type="text/html"/> <content type="application/xhtml+xml" xml:base="http://www.bither-terry.org/annie/index.html" xml:space="preserve"> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> I went on my first blind date tonight. Blind, but not deaf-- we’d talked on the phone several times before getting together. Seeing Matt for the first time was jarring, not because he is unattractive (he’s not) but because he didn’t look like how I expected, which made me realize that I’d had an image of him without knowing it and that made me wonder what other unnamed expectations lurk in my subconscious... I know I expected something different in my life right now, something more definitive. <div style="text-align: center;font-family:georgia;"> “There’s more than one answer to these questions pointing me in a crooked line And the less I seek my source for some definitive the closer I am to fine” --Indigo Girls “Closer to Fine” </div> Do all roads leave to Rome? Does it really matter if I go to France in a month or in a year? If I try to make Breast Play national now or later? If I go on that second date? When it comes to discerning my future, I long for answers, for the definitive. I’m afraid of deviating from the path even though my entire life has probably been nothing but a series of detours and diversions. Ours is a culture that relies on snap judgments, perhaps out of necessity. A fast paced lifestyle doesn’t leave much room for leisurely getting to know someone and figuring out where they fit into your life, if at all, because we’re constantly thinking about the finish line and who will help us get there, to 2.5 kids, the white picket fence and a mini-van. You know the clichés; you’ve heard them all before and maybe, like me, you deny wanting them, wanting to get to the end of the race, but you do. On some level, you want it bad. Because you’ve been conditioned to; we all have. Or maybe we really want it. But we’re too busy racing to that finish line to figure out if that’s where we want to be. </div> </content> <draft xmlns="http://purl.org/atom-blog/ns#">false</draft> </entry> <entry xmlns="http://purl.org/atom/ns#"> <link href="https://www.blogger.com/atom/6762158/112857927330982820" rel="service.edit" title="" type="application/atom+xml"/> <author> <name>Annie</name> </author> <issued>2005-10-05T23:13:00-07:00</issued> <modified>2005-10-06T06:14:33Z</modified> <created>2005-10-06T06:14:33Z</created> <link href="http://www.bither-terry.org/annie/2005/10/not-everything-that-is-faced-can-be.html" rel="alternate" title="" type="text/html"/> <id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762158.post-112857927330982820</id> <title mode="escaped" type="text/html"/> <content type="application/xhtml+xml" xml:base="http://www.bither-terry.org/annie/index.html" xml:space="preserve"> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <div style="text-align: center;"> “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it’s faced.” </div> Though James Baldwin was probably referring to the civil rights movement when he said this, I find it applicable to my current situation. I can’t change my health if I don’t face it and I think the best way to do that is to stick around the States a little longer yet. How much longer, I’m not sure. Tomorrow morning I’ll start taking thyroid medication and four weeks from now I’m supposed to have lab work done to check my levels and then adjust the medication accordingly. It is such a relief to finally know the cause of my lethargy that I already feel better, even though I haven’t started taking the medication! As for my job in France, Meg Merwin, the woman who is in charge of the U.S. side of the assistantship program, said she would ask my school district to save my position for me. If they’re not willing to do that, I would be able to take the spot of one of the English language assistants who will drop out during the coming months. Meg said she always dreads October because it is a month wrought with tragedies... or at least some really tragic stories! Regardless, I could end up anywhere in France or maybe in Martinique sipping a tropical drink in the sun in which case, it was nice knowing y’all. Do come visit. Truth be told, Brittany was my first choice because I fell in love with that part of France four years ago, but I’ll do my best to bloom wherever I’m planted... </div> </content> <draft xmlns="http://purl.org/atom-blog/ns#">false</draft> </entry> <entry xmlns="http://purl.org/atom/ns#"> <link href="https://www.blogger.com/atom/6762158/112789098336635174" rel="service.edit" title="" type="application/atom+xml"/> <author> <name>Annie</name> </author> <issued>2005-09-28T00:02:00-07:00</issued> <modified>2005-09-28T07:03:03Z</modified> <created>2005-09-28T07:03:03Z</created> <link href="http://www.bither-terry.org/annie/2005/09/packing-haiku-packity-pack-pack-why-do_28.html" rel="alternate" title="" type="text/html"/> <id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762158.post-112789098336635174</id> <title mode="escaped" type="text/html"/> <content type="application/xhtml+xml" xml:base="http://www.bither-terry.org/annie/index.html" xml:space="preserve"> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> Packing: A Haiku Packity pack pack Why do I have so much stuff? Packity pack pack </div> </content> <draft xmlns="http://purl.org/atom-blog/ns#">false</draft> </entry> <entry xmlns="http://purl.org/atom/ns#"> <link href="https://www.blogger.com/atom/6762158/112736905627394969" rel="service.edit" title="" type="application/atom+xml"/> <author> <name>Annie</name> </author> <issued>2005-09-21T23:05:00-07:00</issued> <modified>2005-09-22T06:05:27Z</modified> <created>2005-09-22T06:04:16Z</created> <link href="http://www.bither-terry.org/annie/2005/09/do-you-know-face-of-flying-according.html" rel="alternate" title="" type="text/html"/> <id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762158.post-112736905627394969</id> <title mode="escaped" type="text/html"/> <content type="application/xhtml+xml" xml:base="http://www.bither-terry.org/annie/index.html" xml:space="preserve"> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> Do you know the face of flying? According to Virgin Atlantic "a flight should be known by its personality, not is number." I decided I wanted to discover my flight's "unique vibe" so I watched a little video about flight #020 (a.k.a. The Fly Chi). It's too deep for words, so you'll just have to watch it yourself to get a glimpse of the beauty I'll be experiencing a week from tomorrow... or rather would be experiencing if I were flying first class. I guess I'll have to achieve "upper class Feng Shui" another time. http://www.virginatlanticflights.com/ Oh, and while you're at the above site, please be so kind as to nominate me as the ultimate jeterosexual. Though I will clearly be devastated to leave the tranquility of The Fly Chi, I do finally know where I'll be staying once I arrive in Fougères! Yesterday I got an email from Françoise, an English teacher at the high school where I'll be working. Apparently I'll be sharing a flat with the other foreign language assistants. Françoise said that the English and Mexican assistants will already be there when I arrive. I'm not sure if it will be the three of us or if there will be a German T.A. as well. Another American will be living in Fougères and commuting to teach in a nearby town, but she said she'll be living with a principal or something so I don't think she'll be in our flat. Good God I'm going to live in a flat! It's like "The Real World" or something, but hopefully nothing like it now that I think about it... At any rate, espero que puedo practicar espanol and learn cool British phrases and maybe I'll soon be able to say something in German that’s slightly more useful than "you are a transvestite" or "you are my treasure" (although the first has come in handy on a few occasions). </div> </content> <draft xmlns="http://purl.org/atom-blog/ns#">false</draft> </entry> <entry xmlns="http://purl.org/atom/ns#"> <link href="https://www.blogger.com/atom/6762158/112728645402338044" rel="service.edit" title="" type="application/atom+xml"/> <author> <name>Annie</name> </author> <issued>2005-09-21T00:05:00-07:00</issued> <modified>2005-09-21T20:34:49Z</modified> <created>2005-09-21T07:07:34Z</created> <link href="http://www.bither-terry.org/annie/2005/09/bad-news-is-i-am-not-writing-this-from.html" rel="alternate" title="" type="text/html"/> <id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762158.post-112728645402338044</id> <title mode="escaped" type="text/html"/> <content type="application/xhtml+xml" xml:base="http://www.bither-terry.org/annie/index.html" xml:space="preserve"> <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> The bad news is I am not writing this from a sidewalk café with a barret tilted just-so on my head and a baguette under my hairy armpit while drinking very strong coffee out of an impossibly small cup, smoking a cigarette, holding onto a poodle’s leash with one hand and typing with the other. The good news is I type a lot faster with both hands. Oh, and I’m still going to France; I’m just not going the day before yesterday (Pascal will have to test that time machine he designed another day). My new plan is to leave for the birthplace of so many clichés and stereotypes--the start of this post gave you a mere taste--on Thursday September 29th. My delayed departure will allow me to have some additional tests done so I can figure out how to get my mojo back and if not, well I’m going anyway. It turns out that the mother-of-all-sinus-infections might never have been an infection after all... according to the ENT it certainly wasn’t when he saw me or when I had a CT scan, so I guess all those antibiotics were just so I could do my part to support the struggling pharmaceutical industry. Now I’m supporting the little dears by buying oodles of allergy drugs instead. To be honest, the drugs aren’t helping as much as I would have hoped, but this just fuels my desire to get out of this damn valley since it’s notorious for its allergens, particularly during the almond harvest. But enough about that and back to stereotypes and clichés! I hope to offer an alternative view for my many loyal readers... Apparently there are four of you reading my blog now, all immediate family except for a particular high school English teacher whose boredom in teaching a remedial class based on a computer program is so profound that he has turned to my blog for enlightenment. And enlightenment you shall find, dear chap, as I offer up a totally subjective and quasi-anthropological view of French culture. So, enlightenment, but with my own colored filter on the light. I’m rather partial to the color red, but then my readers would be seeing red and, well, we wouldn’t want that now would we? In fact, when I went to France for the first (and only) time about five years ago, one of my friends did see red upon reading an email I wrote about my experience with French food. Referred to by everyone at Worland High School as “French Emilie”, she was a Rotary exchange student from Paris, France and one of my best friends my senior year of high school. In a way, we were both outsiders since I had also just moved to that small town in the middle of Wyoming. At any rate, my email--plus a whole lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding--spurred a horrible falling-out, and Emilie and I haven’t spoken since. However, thanks to a small but vivacious anthropology department at Willamette University, I have since discovered something wonderful and life-altering [cue trumpets, angels, and Guatemalans playing the marimba]... CULTURAL RELATIVISM I look forward to making good use of this concept and many others I learned during four years of overpriced (but totally worth it) education! </div> </content> <draft xmlns="http://purl.org/atom-blog/ns#">false</draft> </entry> </feed>