Underarmor

I was watching Bones the other day, and something they said really hit me. I'm sure this idea is not originally from Bones, because I'm sure I've heard it before, but that's where I heard it last.

Bones said to Booth that "a substance that's impervious to damage doesn't need to be strong." The idea, I guess, is that even if something is very strong, it is still breakable; for example, stones are very tough, but even diamonds can be broken. But if a substance is untouchable, its strength doesn't matter, because nothing is able to affect it.

I've always been a very touchy person. It's difficult for me to take criticism of any kind, though I understand it's often in my best interest, and I'm willing to take it if I have to. But when people yell at me, I cry. It's not something I can control--believe me, I've tried. There have even been times when I didn't feel anything emotionally, and in my head, I kept thinking "why am I crying? I don't even care." But it doesn't matter. I'm easily hurt, and easily offended. Most people probably don't realize it, because I'm not usually the type to lash out, and I've gotten good at hiding disappointment and sadness. But it's there.

When I was a kid, it was a major problem. When my dad yelled at me, I cried, no matter what it was about, No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop. But he never did understand that, and he somehow got the idea that I did it on purpose, to make him feel bad, or to get him to stop, so when I cried, it just made him madder.

So I spent years attempting to harden my heart, forging a layer of under-armor just beneath the skin. Every time I hurt and wanted to cry, I imagined my heart as a hunk of stone, cold and hard, and the words were like rain washing against its surface. But, given enough time, water can chip away at a stone until all that remains is a handful of sand. And my heart was no different. No matter how hard I tried, I never could keep myself from crying; it only made things worse when the shell finally broke.

And I realize it's because I wasn't addressing the real problem. I was treating the symptom, the crying, rather than the source. It's like telling a teenage girl that people are only making fun of her because they're jealous. It might help a bit, but the true problem is the self-esteem; she will never stop being hurt until she looks at herself and thinks that she's beautiful. Because then it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.

Unfortunately, I still don't know what the source of the problem is. It may be that I'm just a touchy person, but that's not who I want to be. I don't want to have to be strong anymore. It's hard, tiring work. It's like patching a dam. I want to be impervious, so I can focus on other things, like raising my daughter, writing a book, enjoying life.

 I may never discover what makes me so touchy. Maybe it's impossible. But I guess all I can do is try.

Just a Taste

So I could not come up with anything for the letter T that I hadn't already spun into some other letter. Which is pretty sad, since 't' is probably one of the most common letters. So, though it's not really in the same genre as my usual posts, I decided I'd give people a taste of one of the novels I'm working on. It's a hard decision for me, because I'm so paranoid about people stealing my work, but I'll give it a shot. This is an excerpt from chapter one:

                The voices were at it again.

                Gerrik could hear them arguing in the back of his head. They’d kept him awake every night since he fled the city, and he was tired. They made no effort to whisper, and by the sound of it, sleep would not be a possibility anytime in the near future. It was like they were keeping him up on purpose.

                Would you knock it off already?  He grumbled.

                The voices took a moment to sound chagrined, then resumed their argument at a slightly lower volume.

                It would have to do. At least they weren’t involving him this time. Usually he tried to avoid their notice, but right now he was too tired to care.

                Sleep fell on him in a fury, a raging river battering him on spears of jagged memory. He reached for one, any one, in his panic, and he was standing on a city street.

                It was night, and the sky was clear. Stars lit the city, brighter than a million candles, and a hundred times more beautiful. He was in a park, and he could see every tree, every flower, in perfect detail, except that they seemed washed out, faded, as if even color slept this night.

                “Gerrik?”

                He  jumped. He was not alone.

                He turned, and she was there, brows furrowed, a hand laid gently on his arm. All of her colors were awake. The rich green of her eyes, hair the color of rich red clay. Her skin, warm and smooth as honey, vibrant and alive.

Alive.

                “Are you okay?”

                “Hmm?”

                “You were about to say something, and you stopped,” she said. “Are you okay?”

                He looked down, and there was a ring in his palm. He’d spent weeks carving the intricate lily design, her favorite flower, out of the soft white wood. Tears sprung to his eyes.

                “I love you so much,” he whispered.

                He could hear her smile without looking up. He loved that about her. So expressive, her emotions affected everyone around her. It wasn’t magic; it was her. Just her.

                He was afraid to look up.

                “Will you marry me?” he asked tentatively.

                She smiled again. “Of course I will, silly!” she said, just like she had that night.

                He finally looked up.

                Blood pulsed from a gash in her throat, soaking the white sheet that wrapped her body. Her eyes were hurt, accusing.

                “You said you’d protect me, Gerrik. You promised.”

                He opened his mouth to apologize, and water filled his mouth. He was drowning. The river pulled him under. It was noiseless, and it was deafening. It was dark. So dark… He couldn’t see the surface. He knew it was there, just out of reach, but the current beat at him from every angle. He stretched out a hand, reaching for something, anything to hold on to, but it was useless, so useless.

He was useless.

 He tried to scream, and suddenly he was awake, gasping. The voices sounded like they were trying not to sound vindicated.

You guys could have warned me, Gerrik grumbled. You know my head better than I do.

The voices shrugged.  

Sleep

The only thing I love more than food, which I really, really love, is sleep. I still haven't grown out of the habit of sleeping 12+ hours as, I assume, most people do once their out of their teens. If I could get away with sleeping all day, I probably would most of the time.

As you can imagine, this became a problem when I had Olivia. Not that it was unexpected, but there's not a whole lot you can do to prepare for waking up every two hours, except for waking up every two hours--and that was so not happening. I slept more than ever when I was pregnant, up to sixteen hours some days towards the end, and I was loving it. Since I couldn't eat anything I wanted (the best perk of pregnancy) due to gestational diabetes, which is loads of fun, let me tell you, I figured I at least deserved as much sleep as I wanted. And at least four baths a day.

Anyway, when we brought her home, I actually had trouble sleeping for the first time in my life, and not because of her--she did wake us up most of the time every 2-4 hours, I couldn't even all asleep for the first couple days. Before she was born I scoffed at all the people who were so psychotic about SIDS that they had to go check on their baby every five minutes. But afterwards, as is usually the case, I realized I was an idiot.

I've mentioned before that I have terrible vision, and usually I am very strict about taking out my contacts at night, because it absolutely ruins the next day for me. They always get all dry, and it feels like wearing acid on your eyes which, as I'm sure you've guessed, really f-ing hurts.

But for the first four days after she was born, I couldn't take them out. I was so worried that she'd just randomly stop breathing, and if I had my contacts out I wouldn't be able to see far enough into her crib to check. But because I didn't want to seem insane, and because the logical part of me knew that if I gave in it would become a habit I'd be hard-put to break, I forced myself to stay in bed, squeezing a pillow, just waiting for that little cry that would tell me she was okay.

I eventually got over it, though even now I still like to go check on her every once in awhile. She's absolutely beautiful when she's awake; the way her little face lights up every time she sees me will never cease to bring tears to my eyes, but while she sleeps...I honestly don't know how to describe it. Sleeping babies are the most peaceful, beautiful thing in the world. I envy that level of blind trust and relaxation.

Anyway, I don't get as much sleep now. Even though she sleeps about twelve hours, I've gotten used to staying up late, so I might only get six or eight hours, depending on how needy the cat is feeling. But I can honestly say that it really doesn't bother me when she wakes me up, and it never did. Anyone else can expect to get a foot in the face, but for her, I'd do anything. So, though I'd have called anyone cray for telling me I'd ever say this, going without a few hours sleep is an easy sacrifice to make.

Rough Draft

I've mentioned on several occasions that I really don't know much about 'science.' But I did take a few classes here and there, and the most interesting topic to learn about, for me, was genetics.

I don't believe in 'evolution' in the sense that many people define it--the idea that we all came from a single, common ancestor--but I do believe in change over time. How could I not? It doesn't take much 'science' to look back over the years and see how far we've progressed as a species. Perhaps not much physical change has occurred, at least not outwardly, but socially, emotionally, intellectually? We've come a long way, and we continue to change and grow at an amazing rate. And a big part of that is genetics.

When I look at Olivia, I see all the best parts of myself and the best parts of her father. It's an amazing, almost mind-boggling concept to think that every generation, every child, is better than their parents. In a way it's like she's a better version of myself, Noelle 2.0, and in another way she's a completely different person.

It makes me feel as if I was just a rough draft for this perfect little person. And you know what? I'm okay with that.

Quatrain

The first time I really began to believe that I had a shot as a writer was during my Junior year of high school. I was in Mr. Baumstark's AP Language Arts class, and I was loving it. When I look back at the essays I wrote back then, I'm amazed at just how much I've improved since then, but at the time I thought my writing was awesome, and it probably was for 11th grade.

Anyway, every year the St. Louis Symphony has a writing contest called "Express the Music" for high school students in the St. Louis area. They record themselves playing a piece of music and send it out to the high schools. Then, to participate, students write something, 250 words max, which...well, expresses the music, I guess. It's pretty self-explanatory. It can be anything-a short story, poetry, anything.

And Mr. Baumstark decided that he would make it a mandatory assignment for everyone in the class to participate. I decided to write a poem. As I listened to the music, a story unfolded, and I wrote it out in a simple Quatrain form-you know, abab, cdcd, etcetera. It was a simple poem, really, about a princess who had waited too long for prince charming to come, and decided to take matters into her own hands.

The coolest part about it was that I matched what was going on in the story to the music, if you read it at the right speed. A line of descending notes was her running down the stairs. A pause was her hiding from a guard. Things like that.

Do you have any idea, by the way, how difficult it is to write 250 words or less based on a piece of music? Because I didn't. I wrote the poem, and it took me hours to take out words, one at a time, so it was under 250. It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, and I had no idea just how useful it would be.

I think a lot of people struggle more with writing enough, at least to begin with. In high school, people would go to crazy lengths to add space to an essay--taking each punctuation mark and making it a larger font size was my favorite. It was really difficult to notice, and added at least half a page. But eventually I got to the point where I always wrote way more than the required length, and most teacher/professors were really psyched about that, until I started taking my upper level major classes. Then, it was more important to make each individual word count than toss out a bucket of words and hope that a meaningful message ended up in there somewhere.

Anyway, I wrote the poem, but at no point did I ever think "Hey, this might actually be good enough to win!" I didn't try to put some deep, meaningful message in there. I just wrote a silly poem, and turned it in. So I was genuinely surprised when I found out that I was one of the 20 finalists in my division. There were actually quite a few people in my class who were finalists, including my best friend. And I thought, "You know what? That's pretty cool. It's awesome to be able to say I was a finalist in the first writing competition I've ever entered."

So I decided to go to the award ceremony, which all the finalists were invited to, where they would be announcing the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. We sat in a group on stage, and I was just enjoying being there, whispering to Sarah, my best friend, about something, I don't remember what. So I wasn't even paying attention when they called my name.

"Second place goes to Noelle Johnson."

I've turned out to be pretty full of myself at this point, and I always think it's crazy when I don't win the writing competitions I submit work to now (I haven't won anything since). But back then, I had no idea. I mean, I got all A's on my papers, so I knew I was a good writer, and I was just beginning to think that I might, eventually, want to write a book or two. But the thought that I might actually place had never even crossed my mind.

I would never even have entered the contest if Mr. Baumstark hadn't made it mandatory. Without that little push, my life might have turned out completely different. So, Mr. B., if you ever happen to read this--thank you.

I won $250 dollars that night, which was a huge boost to my car fund (though the one I ended up buying totaled itself six months later, and I have still, today, never managed to save enough for another-that's a story for another day). But the best thing I won that day was a glimmer of hope. I let myself begin to believe, for the first time, that I might actually be able to make it as a writer.

And, though I haven't quite made it yet, I think I've got a good start.

Poetry

Another sample of my poetry, since a few people seemed to like it. It's been published in Truman State University's 2011 edition of Windfall. It's a bit darker than my usual tone for this blog.


Holly berries fill a Styrofoam cup,
Picked illicitly
From the top of the
Grey, peeling propane tank in the yard,
Traded
For wild onions pulled from the
Earth
Where Grendel was buried,
Underneath the old pine tree
Which heard the cowboys And Indians
Huddled ‘round a campfire
Chanting
A whispered song, half forgotten,
Muffled
By the sound of shouting--
A battle seen through the gaps of
Her fingers--
while sirens
Drown
The sound of screams.

Strangers
Who love the children
Whose parents couldn’t even
Love themselves
Comfort them with penny-pancakes.
But even Bugs Bunny knows what
“Their mother was on-“
“Shh, not in front of the kids!”
Who look around,
Confused.

There are no kids, only
Overcooked bacon, sandwiches
with crusts.
The piggies don’t have blankets.
How are they supposed
To go to the market?
They ask
A silver knight
With rainbow shoes
All colored in the lines
Hanging
On the fridge
For when mommy
comes home.

And on the porch
A spilled cup of
Crimson
Seeps
slowly
into Memory.

Olivia

Olivia was the only name my husband and I agreed on. I wanted something unique and beautiful, like my own name; he wanted something simple. My main concern was the 'unique' part. I wanted to give her an uncommon name so she wouldn't be the third 'Sarah' or 'Ashley' or 'Brittney' in her class when she was old enough for school. I don't know why, but it was really important to me.

Unfortunately, I found out later that Olivia and May are some of the most popular names right now, so there's a good chance it won't matter. But there's something about the name that suits her perfectly. I don't know if it's just me, but I've met a lot of people whose names just didn't fit. The first was a guy I met when I was little, one of my mom's friends. I have no idea what his real name was, but for some reason I really wanted to call him Allen, because he looked like an Allen to me.

I wonder how that works? How is personality or appearance tied to a person's name? It's a strange phenomenon. If names are meant to identify us to other people, why do some people hate the names they've been given? Is it because they are dissatisfied with something in themselves? Something in someone else with the same name? Or is it as simple as disliking the sound of it?

I have no answers. But I've always loved my name, and I hope Olivia feels the same when she grows up.