To Those Who Have Gone Before

This post is dedicated to those servicemen, both active and veteran, who have directly impacted my life. To my father, Roger, to my mentor, Jeff, and to my uncle, James, as well as those incredible individuals I have met in my life in DC thus far. These words are yours and yours alone. 

It was hazy beneath the clouds and the hills stretched out in long, deep peaks. Somewhere among the wave of tourists, silent tears were shed and prayers were uttered. Before me lay an unknowable number of white carved stones of various hewn states; their presence a superficial afterthought from the identity of he who lies beneath. Their lives and loves are preserved here in timelessness. Flowers and nations bloom from their sacrifice, preserved on these mounds of uncontainable verdure. Inexplicably complex, untouchable and vast, this is Arlington National Cemetery.

I took this journey seemingly alone, but I was more than haunted throughout my walk by the pithy ghosts of warriors now and yon. I frequented cemeteries regularly in France, according to the Parisian custom of wandering into history. They are small in that place, with winding cobblestones and ancient tombstones. But here in America, nothing is done with subtlety and the landmarks to the deceased are no exception. Even so, the place is immense, glazed with gloom and severity. I walked endlessly from path to path, expecting at any moment to find the cemetery's edge and look once again into the skyline of Washington. No such thing occurred. I rounded corners in vain to find sprawling rows of headstones. I have never been to a place so desperately immense. Nor have I ever seen a marker of atrocity that plans for future peril, too.

It was a special place, too, yesterday afternoon, after the President left and the concert to memorialize these victims had ended. Each grave is given a small flag and a red rose three times a year: Memorial Day, July 4th, and Veteran's Day. And while I loved the symbolism it gives to an already iconic place, I couldn't help but question the tradition. Do we, as Americans, wordlessly apologize for the conflicts and conscriptions of our forefathers? Are we so ambivalent about the past that the best we can do is place a little cotton square on each burial marker? Can we look into the Virginian hills, not yet tainted with blood from the fallen, and know that thousands or millions more may join the ranks?

In my short story club this week, we read a classic piece titled, An Occurrence at Owl Creek. Said occurrence, it would seem, was the drawn out death of a confederate soldier, who was unsuccessfully hanged, then drowned, then shot. It is all written from his point of view, so the agony and curiosity of death litters each word and the color gray douses the entire tale in dehumanizing fashion. We may be black or white, but our skin is never gray.

I sat back and listened as the discussion raged on. Between this incidence, my day at Arlington, and my recent encounters with army veterans of varying ages, I've been forced to grapple with violence, death, and murder. My inability to deal with violence is a sort of sickness I inherited, albeit proudly, from my mother. I cannot watch Quentin Tarantino and I hide my face in my little sister's shoulder during movie scenes that feature graphic deaths. I've never seen someone die. All my family is alive. All my friends, too.

I suppose you could call me young, or just lucky, or perhaps even naive. Even so, as I mourned and absorbed our country's innumerable losses, I felt more pity for those who have seen atrocity and lived than those who experienced it and passed. I am and capable of many things the world affords me, but I confess that the strength of my spirit is not so great that I could function after such sights.

I believe this is the first time I have understood why so much respect and adoration is afforded to those who serve in the armed forces in America. The respect is not for the following of orders, the donning of uniforms, or the process of dehumanizing a people. We all do these things in our everyday life, in our own way - at work, at home, in our personal lives. No, this respect is gratefulness, really. Because of these brave, tenacious souls, we will never watch atrocity in action. We do not carry scars and secrets in the confines of our skin. We experience no burden of destruction and of the dead. They go to prepare and sustain this place for us. And for the republic, for which we stand.

May we never forget to place flags and upon the blades of grass beneath which you lay. May we never forget to place roses upon the pure white stones that bind you.

Jefferson Lives

My favorite spot in Paris was never the café where Fitzgerald penned The Great Gatsby. It wasn't the flower market in the Marais or the staircase in Passy where one can view the Eiffel Tower in its natural state. The place I loved the most is an all-but-forgotten street corner two blocks from the Louvre on the banks of the Seine where a humble American diplomat stands, a declaration in one hand and a pen in the other. When I happened upon this modest statue of Jefferson that afternoon three years ago, it seemed to be the final omen that Paris belonged to me.

I've loved Thomas Jefferson since I was 13, when I had only begun to find my place in the world. He was the first American francophile, a statesman, a musician, a writer, and a dreamer. Of all the founding fathers, I have adored and related to him the longest. Flaws and all, I suppose he is my hero. If I live to accomplish only a fraction of all he did - our first ambassador to France, travelling anywhere and everywhere, writing, reading, and collecting exotic coffees - I think I could die in peace.

Before I moved here, to DC, I'd never been to the memorial that bears his name. Each time I've been to the city, this palatial rotunda was closed for renovation or too far to walk to. I've only ever stared at it from afar, examining its edges with a loving sort of sorrow. Today it was at last within reach.

While Lincoln sits on an immense throne, Jefferson stands to survey the river, the White House, and all those who pass between with soft iron eyes. I approached him with a shiver and fought back the urge to bow. It sounds ridiculous to you, I'm sure, and especially to those who neither love or respect him as I do. He is not remembered for his all but disastrous presidency, nor for his numerous sins. He is beloved instead for his ideas; for the eloquence with which he wrote. It is for those reasons we celebrate his memory. In America, ideas, not deeds, are paramount. After all, we came to exist because a group of middle-aged revolutionaries dared to dream.

It quite befits Jefferson to be honored in a corinthian cylinder nearly a mile outside the city. A true introvert, I imagine he would scoff if he knew that thousands of tourists visit him every day. I listened to the park ranger rattle irreverent and unflattering facts about this paragon in the corner and watched the winds shift on the river. Yes, this place is indeed sacred to me.

My afternoon with Jefferson came full circle when I took a moment to go underground to the tiny museum boutique beneath his feet. There was a quote etched into the entrance wall that read, "Knowledge is Light" and a little emotional alarm went off in the back of my head, repeating "Light, More Light!" (Lawrence University's motto) over and over like a groove etched into a shoddy record. In a month, I will have been graduated from Lawrence a full year. Sitting here on the riverbank, I'm not waxing nostalgic, but rather confused and a bit hopeless. Eleven months ago, I biked to the edge of the Fox River and felt nothing but optimism, knowing that all options were open and that my future held nothing but success. I do not know how I could have been so very regrettably naïve. I no longer possess the energy to accept defeat, nor have I the strength to beg at opportunity's door. These nine months have been endurably unforgiving. I cannot help but feel that this place in all its flaws, is where I am meant to be and yet my doubts are numerous. I sit here in limbo, unable to move. My intuition has led me astray before - is it wrong again?

On a hot July day (the fourth, to be exact), in 1826, John Adams breathed his last and spoke the words, "Jefferson lives." Of course, logical historians find this hilarious, for Jefferson had already expired on the other side of Virginia more than an hour previously. But those of us who are romantics believe a different tale: that Adams knew full well the value of Jefferson's legacy. At least, I'd like to believe that, especially when nothing else makes much sense.

"Were I to proceed to tell you how much I enjoy architecture, sculpture, painting, music, language, I should want for words." - Thomas Jefferson

The Younger, More Vulnerable Years

Approximately four months ago, I left this blog with the sorry aftertaste of hopelessness, ending my twenty second year on the planet with a sublime sense of aggravation. I admit that the time passed between now and then seems like the longest 120 days of my existence, but I am excited to report that life is full of promise and opportunity once more. Readers, (if there are any of you!) I am moving to Washington, DC.

For those of you who are reading this and do not know me, I imagine you are bursting with questions. Why DC? Why now? What's there? Who is there? How will you get there, and live, and work, and not come home after three months? I confess I have no concrete answers to these questions except that I trust my intuition to lead me through everything. I've got a place to stay, friends and family surrounding me, plans for the future, and a promising job interview tomorrow morning. When I left Paris to go to Nantes, I had none of this - I was essentially going at it completely alone. This time around, I've learned a lot about moving someplace new, from the packing to the adjusting to everything in between. What's more, I've learned my value as a woman, an employee, and a daughter.

The graduating class of 2014 is filled to the brim with some of my closest friends. So, I am often asked the question, "Can you believe it's been a year since you left Lawrence?"

The honest answer is: Yes, I absolutely can.

I don't think it would be possible for me to compare the person I was a year ago to the person I am now. I cannot even begin to explain the magnitude of heartbreak and loss I've endured, but at the same time, I have never been happier with the person I've become. I learned self-respect, ingenuity, faith, trust, and self-love the hard way. When you hit rock bottom and are forced to start again, life has a surprising way of teaching you how to make sure this kind of low never occurs again.

I could go on and on in this post, and talk about how awful it was moving in with my parents, how my first "relationship" was the definition of clutter and poor decisions, how my job at LA Fitness plunged me into a pit of despair, and even more than that. Instead, I'll spare you the details. Today I'm full of optimism and acceptance - two qualities I've been praying to possess the moment this new adventure starts. Perhaps the most valuable lesson I've learned in all this is that life is completely, utterly about the one overlooked thing: timing. If the stars don't align the right way and something doesn't work out, accepting that it isn't meant to be is difficult, yes, but it hardly reflects on the person or people who screwed it up. It's about God's timing and the universe's will to respond. We are merely players in this incredible, crazy, magnificent life, and while our choices are our choices, a lot of them turn into mistakes.

I wanted to publish this post last night, because it would have been four months exactly since my last one. But I'm learning to let things go and accept what comes. Life cannot be a list. The people in it are objectified if you class them according to the qualities and timing they do or do not possess.

My little sister, in all her funny honesty, called me when she got back to Berry College after Christmas and said, "Why would you start your blog again? You're back in the states; nobody cares!" If she had told me that a year ago, I would have begrudgingly agreed and this whole thing would cease to exist. Why, you ask? Because I cared more about what other people thought  - especially what other people thought about me - than what I thought. That was a huge lesson I had to learn, too. I cannot go around living my life with other people's intentions in mind. Some would call focusing on myself a little selfish, but because I am horribly altruistic and giving, that is hardly something I have to worry about. In any case, this blog is for me. I would be perfectly all right if it never exceeded 3000 views. The only views I care about are my own. And quite frankly, that's the way it should be. As my good friend Rachel said, "It's about damn time."

Throughout the four months that I've soul-searched and cried and questioned myself, I came to another huge conclusion about what I want in my life. When everything you know and thought you loved is ripped away from you like a huge bandaid from your skin, you're left with the basics and the chance to start again. I've realized that I love to write. And I'm good at it! I've done freelance review work for an app company, I've teamed up with a small travel organization to complete a project and am helping to write French curriculum. I love doing all of this because it stems from my truest passion - the one I have had since before I started dancing, playing piano, cooking, dressing fashionably; the one I had in my darkest hour when I wrote 10-year-old storybooks and 15-year-old novels. Writing is at my core, and from now on, I want to pursue it. I don't know how, but that doesn't necessarily matter. I found my drive. And the greatest thing is, it can be applied to just about any industry in any field.

Luckily for me, I'm heading to a place that needs passionate, motivated, bilingual writers of all kinds.

Here I sit, young and vulnerable at my kitchen table, staring out into the retention marsh behind the house. My circuitous path to this moment was long and maybe a little tragic. But the reward is just beginning. I'm me. On the right side of the ocean, with a suitcase that weighs less than 50 pounds and a plane ticket to the place I belong.

Until next time.

“When human beings are faced with chaotic circumstances, our impulse is to stay safe by doing what we’ve always done before. ... To change anything about our lives...causes great anxiety. How we are convinced finally to change is by hearing stories of other people who risked and triumphed. Not some easy triumph, either. But a hard fought one that takes every ounce of the protagonist’s inner fortitude. Because that’s what it takes in real life to leave a dysfunctional relationship, move to a new city, or quit your job. It just does.

I think it is because change requires loss. And the prospect of loss is far more powerful than potential gain. It’s difficult to imagine what a change will do to us." ~ Shawn Coyne