Running
“You can’t chase a runner.”
My pastor and I were talking last night after rehearsal and that came out of his mouth. I’m still thinking about 24 hours later. It’s the first time I”ve heard it worded quite that succinctly. And a concept so complicated? Maybe shouldn’t be worded so simply.
Am I a runner? Most women will admit that in the romance area, they want to be chased. But I’m not talking about the romance area. I’m talking about running from things that scare you. Running from things that hurt. Running from what might hurt.
Is it really easier?
Doesn’t seem like it. With no running comes no brooding, no angst, no “what if” no “maybe someday”. But staying, dealing and moving on sounds so… healthy. Sometimes I wonder if fear is a way of telling us we aren’t ready.
Don’t we all, at some point or another, want to be chased… to know that we are wanted and sought after? Does wanting that make it okay? Or is it just a stupid little game we play to see how far the other will chase until theey get tired and have to stop? (For some reason I’m sensing a metphor or possible joke connecting this with the tortoise and the hare, but my brain just can’t get there right now).
I can’t help but wonder if part of the appeal of running isn’t about keeping the possibility of something else happening alive. As much as you run away from something you don’t want to face, you are also running towards the hope it will work itself out. Or running towards the answer you want but are worried you won’t get, which is why you are running in the first place.
What I’m listening to: Imogen Heap’s Speak for Yourself
Crashing
I need to know why things are the way they are between us.
This awkwardness. This indifference. This avoidance. This pretending nothing happened. Making sure none of our friends know the awfulness that lies between us, unspoken but all said in looks across the room that only we understand.
Maybe if I knew the reason I freeze when you are around, maybe if I understood why the very sight of you freaks me out, maybe if I knew why I pretended too, maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe if I understood why we fell apart in the first place I could understand why I feel the way the I do when you are near.
If I could take it all back, would I? The experience of being with you, with knowing you, with understanding you. With getting you. And you getting me. You know how long it’s been since I met someone who gets me like you did? Would I take it back if given the option?
My God, I think I would.
Because if you were never there, if I didn’t know the sight of breath mints freaks you out, if I didn’t know you hate to give hugs but did just for me, if I didn’t know the sound of the laugh you bring out when you don’t know what else to say, if I didn’t know how good your lasagna tastes, if I didn’t know what watching The Passion of the Christ did to you, if I didn’t have to watch you cry when your mother died, if I didn’t know your stubborn streak, or your inability to drink non-organic milk or give a thoughtful gift – if I didn’t know all this I wouldn’t remember what it was like to have you as a friend. And miss it. I would be able to say that my heart was better for knowing you rather than worse for loosing you.
What I’m listening to: Comfortable by John Mayer
What I�m reading: Why Girls are Weird by Pamela Ribon
Remembering
I went to see The Devil Wears Prada a couple of weeks ago. (loved the movie, the book was better) and one of the trailers before it was for for the upcoming movie World Trade Center.
The tagline: The World Saw Evil That Day – Two Men Saw Something Else
I admit it. I couldn’t get through the trailer without crying. In fact, I began almost immediately once I realized what the movie was about. The first thing that flew out of my mouth to my friend next to me was “I think it’s too soon.” Between her sniffles I heard, “Me, too.”
It was five years ago and what was it about that day that still brings up a geyser of emotions? The fact that we are still fighting this battle and havn’t won? That fact that we have to fight at all? I can wax myself patriotic all I want but the fact is I am pissed off that America made a mess out of another mess. But that’s a post for another time.
I’m excited to see Michael Pena on screen again. I love him in Crash and I hoep to see a long career of his in years to come. I question the strange casting of Nicholas Cage in the lead role, but even more than that, I was completely surprised by whose film this is: Oliver Stone’s.
Oliver Stone? The man who gave us Natural Born Killers – one of the worst pieces of cinematic disasters even commited to film? Attacking this subject? And making money off it? Considering his complete body of work, this subject is right up his ally. Although I question it, I won’t write him off just yet. However, I’m not sure I can go see this movie.
I remember being at work and only able to hear things on the radio. Then I remember going home and being unable to turn the TV off. I wanted to know what happened. I wasnted to know who did this and why. I wanted to know what it felt like to be there. I worried about the friends I had that lived in NY. I was sad.
I was in D.C. about six weeks after the attacks. I was scheduled well before the events of 9/11 to work at a conference for the company I worked for in the downtown DC area. The conference was not cancelled, and if memory serves flight has only been up and going for a couple of weeks. Everyone was on edge. No one complained about the long line, the extensive “pat-downs”, and everyone’s eyes darted in each direction. I was asked to drink from a fountain pop I’d purchased the second time I went through the metal detector to get to my gate. I’d taken many trips for work before. This was certainly the most memorable.
We took the subway to see the pentagon and I got a whole new glimpse into what the tiny images on TV, that up until then had only made me sad. Being there made me angry. Up on the hill by the highway that run next to this huge octogon-shaped building, all I could do was call my dad. I told him what it was like to be there. I told him about the photos and art and flags and ribbon that surrounded the tree up on that hill. But I couldn’t even describe the damage I saw. There were really no words.
I still have few words I could even express about that day. Sometimes our lives are too full of words, you know?
Yikes
Now I know why no one understands me.
INTJ.
It can’t be good when you are lumped into a group of people that includes Arnold Schwarzenegger and Hannibal Lector, can it?
(C.S. Lewis is also on the list which makes me feel better. I guess that explains why I’ve always feel like he was a kindred spirit.)
Here’s another interesting assessment about INTJs.
Dominant Introverted Intuition
By Danielle Poirier http://www.RebelEagle.com
© copyright Rebel Eagle ProductionWithout introverted intuitives, it is said that Israel would have had no prophets. Under deceptively conventional appearances lie perceptive minds that travel the breadth and depth of universal mysteries, contemplating its multilayered complexity, seeking the trends that will define the future. With time, clarity of vision comes. When it comes, they are propelled towards the vision and all their actions lead to it. They are perseverant behind a quiet exterior and will often come back with their vision long after everyone believes they have let it go.
What they see is so clear and obvious to them they are often surprised to find that others cannot see it as well. They may find it difficult to articulate the necessary steps towards implementation or to explain how each goal fits into the larger picture.
Their mind usually travels from the past to the future, seeking to fit a particular situation in a large context. It picks up patterns, symbols and images from different seemingly unrelated fields, identifies similarities and provides meaning. This can help solve problems by juxtaposing ideas, finding analogies or simply by rooting out the quintessential reality, discovering the origin in universal stories and human experiences, culling wisdom from the infinitely small to the infinitely large. Their mind naturally travels from the microcosm to the macrocosm.
Spooky. Fits me to a T.
Stephanie Nelson 