What Happens When You Clean Out Your Computer

Yesterday, I was cleaning out my computer [yes, you can do that] when I discovered several old documents. Ancient things I had written long ago. It's strange to read your own words and not even recognize yourself in them. It was another time, another place, another you.

You played me like a violin

So sweet, so gentle.

Your hands softly caressed my skin

As you saw into my very mind.

Beautiful melodies grew from our unexpected bond

Such exquisite harmony I had not heard, nor even known before.

Every minute spent with you only increased my fond affections

Each second seemed to bequeath me, enamored

Never wanting our symphony to end.

Silently, you picked up the bow,

Slowly beginning to play.

Stroking my strings with tender perfection,

Your confidence ringing true.

Within moments, our song had begun,

Stirring joy in the hearts of all who heard.

Simple, beams of sun gleamed upon our faces.

Yes, we were meant to craft such bliss.

Never once did I doubt your lovely intentions,

Always having faith in the music we shared.

Soon, however, your true colors called

for the abandonment of my fragile heart.

Lifeless, you left me on a small black stand,

No melodies left to play.

Cold, I miss the touch of your skillful hands

And the sweet music of that day.

Our union was harmonious, even from the start.

Yet, I shall never forget that mesmerizing night,

When you played me like a violin; your opus, my heart.

Life, it's nothing like the game

It's raining. The dark clouds have been glooming over Norman

just a tad too long. The thick droplets freckle the windows.

Thunder claps the sky. I enjoy listening to the gentle pitter-patter, especially

when I have a good book to read.

But an entire week of it ... I start getting antsy.

My mood is entirely too dependent on the weather.

Because of the unpleasant wet slush outside, Evan and I have been forced indoors.

This means lots of sock baseball, puzzles, and board game marathons.

We played Life this morning, my first time in years.

I was quickly reminded that I'm not a fan, not at all.

Have you ever noticed the "Write a bestseller. Receive $80,000" space?

I hadn't either, until today when my yellow, plastic car landed on it.

A smile surfaced upon my face.

If only it were that easy, I thought.

Maybe that's what I don't like most about this game. It's too neat, too straight forward.

Go to college. Stop. Get married. Stop. Get children. Stop. Buy a house.

All the exciting hallmarks of life are nicely highlighted for you by the bright colorful spaces.

No one is a loser. Everyone wins. We all graduate, get married, and live successful

happy lives with a nice paycheck awaiting us every couple of spaces.

Just spin the wheel and see what luck is in store for you.

Life, my friends, is not like this. [Duh] No, but really.

I think this game is actually killing the very premise of life.

Life [and I'm sure I don't have to tell you this] is messy, it's unpredictable, it's hard.

Like Forrest's mamma says, "Life is like a box of chocolates.

You never know what you're going to get."

The unpredictability of life is what makes it sweet.

We don't know if we're going to succeed. We don't know if it's going to work out

with so-n-so. We don't know where we'll end up, or who will be there with us.

We just don't know what the journey of our lives will entail.

But we can hope. We can pray. We can work hard.

And we can rest in the fact that we have a sovereign God, who knows all the

"spaces" we are going to land on in life.

[Fingers crossed to the orange bestseller box]

silence speaks

.

I'm housesitting [again] this summer. It's strange to reside in someone else's home, sleep in another's bed. I catch myself caught in the housesitting dilemma. I want to feel at home when I arrive after a long day of entertaining children, though it is clear by the empty cupboards and the colorful South African paintings on the wall that I am not.

The silence of the house is eery to me. After all, it's just me and the dog. The only sound that resonates in the large two story house is the soft humming of the fan overhead, or the grunts of Buddy as I put him in his kennel. It's strange to be caught in such a quiet habitat. I'm used to roommates, people to constantly talk to.

Often with the kids, they can't stand the quiet. The calm, the complete lack of noise. They blast a radio or turn the TV on just for the background clamor. The songs fill the room, draining the silence out. Usually, I'm not a fan of the quiet either. I like to listen to the radio and scream sing along just as much as the next person. Lately, however, I have been wondering why I do this. Why am I so uncomfortable with the quiet?

Silence speaks.

Am I simply afraid of what it might say? What it might reveal?

Carlos Fuentes once said, "Writing is a struggle against the silence."

It's our voice. Our weapon against the world's apathy, their disinterest.

The past few weeks, I feel as though my life is filled with "background noise."

Nothing of real importance. Just noise, obnoxious clamor.

I'm not trying to speak out against anything. Instead of struggling against the silence, I flee

from it. If I continue to let my voice fall into sync with the rest of the world, and it will

no longer be my voice, but a dispassionate drone. A constant, pointless racket that isn't

doing anyone any good, especially me.

I don't want to simply add to the noise.

Silence speaks.

But are we listening?

"Be still and know that I am God."

Cardboard box? Or Spaceship?

It's come to my attention that I am a 21-year-old individual,

and I have [for the most part] lost the ability to imagine.

I'm the nanny of a little boy, who pulls fantastical worlds from his buns and I find myself [more often than not] at a loss as to how to add to the imagination fun.

E: "Look, Jena!

The dragon is coming after us! Runnnn awaaaaay!"

Pause.

Me: "... Oh... no..."

I can be a pretty obnoxiously good time with my kids [bring on the jokes, board games, and scream singing] but when it comes to the imagination game, this party bus comes to a screeching halt.

This is Cohen, a four-year-old who lives across the street from the kids I nanny. Here is a picture of the four kids hiding in a box.

Excuse me, spaceship.

They are surrounded by their stuffed animals [fellow Martians] and blankets [protective forcefields]. The camera I whipped out was an oncoming UFO, which they clearly had to run away from. I was fortunate enough to capture this little Martian's face just in time.

This intense space game with the box went on for sometime. [I had been regrettably zapped by a green, poisonous gas thus causing me to go into a vegetative existence losing all my bodily functions. This was necessary to prevent me from stealing the Martians and returning to my home planet. Obviously.]

In my vegetable state, I found myself becoming jealous.

Their game came so second-nature.

They didn't pause to deliberate amongst themselves.

They never questioned the overall premise of their story.

They just knew. Their enthusiasm for imagination got me to thinking.

Writers have to be childlike. We have to throw caution to the wind and imagine

with the same fervor and excitement as these little Martians do.

After all, we are the story tellers. We are the ones creating the worlds, the situations,

and the people that our readers will want to follow. In a sense, we are playing the imagination game for them, inviting readers to come along. I don't know about you, but that's one of the biggest draws to reading for me. The chance to escape. To experience someone else's life, another's adventures.

If we can't imagine, how do we expect to write?

I need to work on my imagination skills. Maybe Evan can teach me his ways.