California Roll

If he'd only known . . .

Twenty four years ago Collin called my parents and said, "Can I stop by?" This was without me, without my even knowing.  We'd been dating six months.

Seated at their yellow formica kitchen table, he told them. "Well, you know I've been dating your daughter some time now, but I've known her as a friend much longer."  He probably tapped his foot and looked from one face to another before blurting the rest.  "I'm thinking to ask her to marry me and I'd like to ask your blessing."

I see my dad's face turning pink as he put both palms on the edge of the table, his elbows pointing out.  "Well, you know, she has . . . " The drum rolls here. and Collin's pulse rises by twenty points. A shopping addiction? a baby out of wedlock and placed in a home?

"Allergies."  

A sigh of relief.

But these were not just inhalant allergies, but sensitivities to food. My issues with food have affected our meals together considerably. He married me anyways, after that frightening revelation.

Actually, many more terrifying things surfaced as the months and years together unrolled---how I don't screw the lids on jars tightly. That has caused many spills of salad dressing, tablets and spaghetti sauce and despite many vows I've made to reform my ways.

He's had to deal with my messy handwriting in the check register and forgetting to write down ATM purchases--quite vexing when he's trying to balance the checkbook.

A more recently-occurring annoyance has been how I cause the plastic clothes pins to fall apart. I've broken eight this way, while he's never done this once.

Then there are the pots I leave on the stove on high and walk outside to do one quick thing, which become a long gardening project.  How many pots have I thoroughly blackened?

Being instinctively cautious, these are not the kinds of mistakes Collin is likely to make.

But much harder for Collin has been the tendency to tell him what to do or criticize him, my anxieties that make sleep difficult sometimes and tears that cannot be easily dammed. These make my allergies seem like very, very small stuff. In fact, we usually laugh when we remember that conversation.

In every marriage there are the little, and big, things that frustrate and enrage, times a person may wish she or he hadn't taken that vow. The magnitude of the difficulties cannot be comprehended beforehand.

Peter's words from Chapter 4 reorient me again and again, "Love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything." And where does that love come from? How can it be kept consistently flowing?  In short, Jesus. In practicalities and specifics, much is required -- that's another essay.

A Different Kind of Fun

    This weekend I haven't seen any  movies or watched any TV. Nor have I hosted any dinner parties or gone hiking, two of my favorite pastimes, yet I've had a terrific weekend of doing hands-on projects.

    Yesterday I, my husband Collin, and three others from church drove to San Jose to paint at a men's rehab center sponsored by City Team. The men living there have taken the most difficult step, the first one, on the journey to transformation.

    The proposed project was two dorm rooms, but it turned out that the Director, Charles, (due to being away for a conference) had forgotten to choose two dorm rooms and have them emptied. Charles asked one guy after another, "Does your room need painting." No, no, no. 

    We had filled up the back of our station wagon with the stepladders, brushes, roller, rags, cleaning solution, bucket and paint that I'd purchased this week (courtesy of my church) and were eager to do something!

    Charles and our gang of five went upstairs to look at dorm rooms. I noticed that the combo pool and TV room had multiple blue chalk and brown/black markings on the walls. "Can we do this one?" Charlers was surprised, but gave his blessing.

    It took an hour just to set up --getting the TV, bulletin board, shelves and games switch plates, and more away from the wall plus moving chairs and couches to the center of the room and spreading out tarps over carpet and furniture. Two experienced painters, one amateur (me) and two novices - starting to paint at 11:30 and intending to spread two coats on a very large room (40'x40'?).  Could we do it and get home in time for dinner?

    I overheard a young man talking to his wife on the public phone in the lounge. His words were a good reminder of why were were there.  "She's got some very big decisions coming up. We need to talk with her. When you come to visit, let's do some Bible study." Very cool and we got to support that!

    Many guys came by while we painted to take a look and express their appreciation. Others brought up drinks on ice and invited us down to lunch. At noon we weren't ready to stop since we'd just started the painting. By 12:45 we had two walls painted with their first coat, so we paused.

       We were an unlikely team - a young woman from Singapore, one from Hongkong who told us she  had never dreamed of doing something like this. Also, a tall fair guy from NY plus me and my Hawaiian-Korean husband. We all have different ways of communicating, different cultures. Working together could have turned out to be no fun at all - annoyances about being in the way or making mistakes. That didn't happen.

    At 3:45 we started cleaning up and at 4:25 got in our cars . The living room upstairs was transformed, clean and bright with new linen-white paint. The residents by now have done the finishing details of reinstalling items on the wall and returning furniture to their rightful places.

    And we were happy. We'd lived out God's kingdom of love, joy and peace as we related to each other and the residents.

    Perhaps what made the difference is how we started our time at City Team SJ -- Collin recapped a sermon about the gospel of the kingdom - bringing "shalom" to earth -- God's peace and the inter-connectedness of well-being. As we care for others, we are transformed ourselves and led into deeper joy.

      Our project was one of twenty-seven being carried on in the 50 miles between San Jose and San Francisco. My contractor friend spent eight hours yesterday and another six today working at a NGO for at risk youth.  Others assembled AIDS kits for caregivers in Africa, or did service projects for schools in impoverished areas. We were five of 3,000 participants in "Compassion Weekend"--a time our church sets aside its regular services to concentrate on serving in the local community and beyond.

  I'm finishing up the weekend with getting soil ready for tomatoes, fertilizing my roses, pulling-up weeds, baking banana bread and reading on this "Lord's day" -- more projects where I experienced God's presence and his love for me as I participate in the good work of creation.

Why I Prefer Gardening (somtimes)

    While I clipped off white calla lilies that had browned around the edges and turned wrinkled and also cleansed the gorgeous purple irises of the shriveled spent ones, a new thought occurred: I prefer gardening to writing. Both involve creating growing and beauty, but with gardening, when you're done pruning off the dead matter, it's certain that the garden is better off.  With writing, it's not so clear.

    I have a twenty-four page story to edit. Yesterday I marked phrases and sentences for deletion, maybe. Today I'll look again and see if I still think so. I was in a dark mood yesterday afternoon and may have been too critical and ruthless.

    With gardening. the rose's white blooms climbing my fence, the orange-sunrise calendulas in pots, and the pink flowers on my crab tree are undisputably beautiful. I can know if I water and fertilize and prune, I and others will enjoy the beauty. (At least in California's mild climate, this is a 90% probability). With writing not so. Tastes vary so. Perhaps people would rather watch a movie than read what I write.  Writing has no certainty. 

    So though I'd planned to edit my story this morning, instead I gardened along with a team of paid gardeners. And I feel much more happy and confident as a result. I'll tackle the ambiguity of words this afternoon.

For the Literally Minded (or those who love them)

    My husband stepped into the kitchen after removing the old spa lid and attaching the new one. "We have to get rid of that thing!" he heatedly announced. 

    "Okay. I'll set up a big garbage pick up."  After all, the spa is for me and my bad back; he seldom likes a hot water bath, so I consider it my responsibility to do its upkeep.

    Another addition to my overwhelming "must-do" list before departing for my MFA residency, but I ranked it high, as a priority, since he had vehemently called for action.  I'm a "feeler" so often my first reaction is like this, responding to someone's emotions rather than rather than to logically analyze the situation. (See  www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/thinking-or-feeling.asp.)

    Fortunately, later when I talked through with Collin all I had to do before departing, he told me, "Getting rid of the old lid can wait." In fact, the four- by six-feet monster has been sitting on the side of the garden for a month and no complaints!

    We get in to trouble when we take each other's words more literally than our partner, friend, teacher or colleague intends (or would intend if they reflected and were asked about their words). 

    It's hard not to take people's words for what they literally mean. In my case, my husband rarely asks for anything forcefully. His requests are of a gentle, softly voiced variety, like "If you have time, could you go by the bank for us?"  I'm connected to him and want to make him happy, so when he says something strongly, I stand up and salute, so to speak.

    That's all fine if I've truly understood him.  The same goes the other way. One of our biggest arguments lately started after I told him, "Take the leftover tuna casserole for lunch, not the chili since we're having that for dinner." 

    Grammatically speaking, that was a command. If you had asked me, I would have told you I didn't mean it that way. It was meant more as a suggestion of something I thought would help him enjoy his dinner meal. I didn't really care all that much what he ate for lunch, but Collin took it as a command and it made him grumpy and feel obligated to do what I had said.  I didn't figure this out at the moment.

    Five minutes later, I said some slightly annoying thing and he responded angrily. (At first I wrote "exploded," but realized that could be mis-understood.  As "HSPs" (Highly Sensitive Persons: http://www.hsperson.com/) a little loudness comes across to me or him as great anger.  I was shocked that he reacted so strongly to a small thing--not his usual character.

    As we tried to wipe up the emotional mess, he realized that it had started earlier when he interpreted my words "Eat the ..."  as an order.

    Probably parental projections come into play here as well as the fact that we come from different cultures. In my family of origin almost everything was a command. And my parents meant it as an imperative. In his family desires or requests were softly stated, indirect, or not spoken at all.

    How hard it is to think carefully before we speak when we're around someone all the time!

    As Jesus and the author James in the Bible recognizes, it's impossible to have perfect control of our tongues. But I'm trying, and praying for grace, to ask questions rather than assume and to let go of anger and hurt at the little things said that wound or inflame. I've been on this walk with Jesus for almost fifty years now, but more than ever do i feel the need for his help in this area of how I speak and understand others.

   

A Happy Sickness

We'd had great plans for these last two days and nights of our oldest Jenny being home with us. She and I were headed towards the Monterey Bay Aquarium yesterday, and today she would have gone to a tech museum with Collin while I hung out with a girlfriend in San Francisco looking at art and enjoying good food.

We had to cancel all because of a lousy, gooey, flowing kind of cold. Both of us have it.

But if we hadn't been kept at home, I wouldn't have watched a Star Trek movie with Collin and Jenny, we wouldn't have played a Scrabble or talked at a leisurely pace.  If well, I would have spent many hours concentrating on staying in my lane and getting somewhere fast.  But I think I did get somewhere, staying home, staying low, drinking tea. It's been good.

First days at the SPU residency

Carol emailed this; I'm posting on her behalf.
—collin

---

First days at the SPU residency are not what I feared. It’s not hectic. The staff and students are not perfectionistic or punitive. Not intimidating. Not that I had any rational reason for feeling I might find that.

Before arriving I sent off an e-mail to my mentor: I’m feeling quite nervous about coming.

Don’t worry, he replied.

Not much help.

All newbies (us three) and returnees (those who stopped out and are returning) met with their mentors today. When my mentor, Bret Lott, asked, How’s it going, I told him, Great. My anxiety is dissipating.

Why? He asked.

Reality.

I didn’t add the concrete details that have been changing me, like the way people smile a lot, introduce themselves and listen so attentively. And with so many students trying to complete their assigned poetry readings, I know I’m not going to get in trouble for not understanding all the vocabulary of John Donne or every single line. And professors smile and laugh and talk like normal people, with perhaps the exception of Greg Wolfe, the Director. He does smile and laugh, but his speech is exceptional. He’s eloquent, comes up with original metaphors just when explaining how the program works, and his range of diction is impressive. His vocabulary range exceeds anyone I’ve personally met.

Hearing Greg talk for an hour and half today removed the he’s-going-to-be-mean fear.

Here’s the irrationality. I’d heard and seen Greg at the two sessions I’ve spent at the Glen Artists Conference. When I see a big man towering over me, hear him say things like, “I’m the time Nazi,” and speak in a low, strong voice, speak without notes with much wit and beauty, I feel afraid. The combination of verbal and physical power is overwhelming. I feel like a small child who might get rebuked, shamed or spanked by her parents.

I’ve been telling myself what Pastor Joanie told me once, “Stop putting your projections on me.” I’ve been asking God to help me stop projecting my internal parental/teacher images on them—my perceptions, true or false, of the way authority figures interacted with me as a child. I want to become adult—to not see new situations through the lenses of the internal child.

Today I can see that Greg is a humble, gracious and forthright teddy-bear, and that I'm not so strange and dumb to feel scared.

What changed my perception? What took me from isolation to community? Reading my poems at an open-mike helped (a kind of confession about my internal struggles and groping towards faith and forgiveness), but also interacting personally with Greg. At the end of his long introduction to the MFA program, I said, “It helps to hear you talk. I don’t feel scared anymore.”

His assistant, Dyana, turned to him. “See what I said is true. They are scared of you.”

I guess I’m not the only one.

I’ve been turning to God lots with many uncomfortable questions and fears. In moments like this he is answering, saying You are not alone in your vulnerability.

I’m coming home. Here will be family.

Jesus talks about projections when he tells us that if our eye is clear that we’ll be able to see clearly. My own unconscious beliefs of not being good enough or of people being stern and demanding have held me back so much and created such fear of new situations.

Through times of prayer with my counselor some of my inner workings are being cleaned and moved around. Jesus is giving me new eyes to see. But the living it out still requires taking risks – like coming here – choosing to act in faith although my feelings are yelling otherwise.

Chesterton said, “Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God made you to be; anything other than that is sin.”

I think I’ve found my race.

First days at the SPU residency

Carol emailed this; I'm posting on her behalf.
—collin

---

First days at the SPU residency are not what I feared. It’s not hectic. The staff and students are not perfectionistic or punitive. Not intimidating. Not that I had any rational reason for feeling I might find that.

Before arriving I sent off an e-mail to my mentor: I’m feeling quite nervous about coming.

Don’t worry, he replied.

Not much help.

All newbies (us three) and returnees (those who stopped out and are returning) met with their mentors today. When my mentor, Bret Lott, asked, How’s it going, I told him, Great. My anxiety is dissipating.

Why? He asked.

Reality.

I didn’t add the concrete details that have been changing me, like the way people smile a lot, introduce themselves and listen so attentively. And with so many students trying to complete their assigned poetry readings, I know I’m not going to get in trouble for not understanding all the vocabulary of John Donne or every single line. And professors smile and laugh and talk like normal people, with perhaps the exception of Greg Wolfe, the Director. He does smile and laugh, but his speech is exceptional. He’s eloquent, comes up with original metaphors just when explaining how the program works, and his range of diction is impressive. His vocabulary range exceeds anyone I’ve personally met.

Hearing Greg talk for an hour and half today removed the he’s-going-to-be-mean fear.

Here’s the irrationality. I’d heard and seen Greg at the two sessions I’ve spent at the Glen Artists Conference. When I see a big man towering over me, hear him say things like, “I’m the time Nazi,” and speak in a low, strong voice, speak without notes with much wit and beauty, I feel afraid. The combination of verbal and physical power is overwhelming. I feel like a small child who might get rebuked, shamed or spanked by her parents.

I’ve been telling myself what Pastor Joanie told me once, “Stop putting your projections on me.” I’ve been asking God to help me stop projecting my internal parental/teacher images on them—my perceptions, true or false, of the way authority figures interacted with me as a child. I want to become adult—to not see new situations through the lenses of the internal child.

Today I can see that Greg is a humble, gracious and forthright teddy-bear, and that I'm not so strange and dumb to feel scared.

What changed my perception? What took me from isolation to community? Reading my poems at an open-mike helped (a kind of confession about my internal struggles and groping towards faith and forgiveness), but also interacting personally with Greg. At the end of his long introduction to the MFA program, I said, “It helps to hear you talk. I don’t feel scared anymore.”

His assistant, Dyana, turned to him. “See what I said is true. They are scared of you.”

I guess I’m not the only one.

I’ve been turning to God lots with many uncomfortable questions and fears. In moments like this he is answering, saying You are not alone in your vulnerability.

I’m coming home. Here will be family.

Jesus talks about projections when he tells us that if our eye is clear that we’ll be able to see clearly. My own unconscious beliefs of not being good enough or of people being stern and demanding have held me back so much and created such fear of new situations.

Through times of prayer with my counselor some of my inner workings are being cleaned and moved around. Jesus is giving me new eyes to see. But the living it out still requires taking risks – like coming here – choosing to act in faith although my feelings are yelling otherwise.

Chesterton said, “Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God made you to be; anything other than that is sin.”

I think I’ve found my race.

Face Time

Little things matter, in marriage especially.

Sundays have been especially hard for me since our house emptied of the under-fifty set. I set aside Sundays for rest, yet, when not occupied with projects, I'm haunted by the vision of close connections now gone. Neighbors I used to hang out with have moved away or are vacationing in Laos. The house stays too quiet. Collin and I can think of nothing to say to one another.

In one meeting with a marriage counselor I complained of the loneliness I often feel on Sundayw even though Collin is home. Mentally, I support his desire to be immersed in writing and thinking. His teaching and expression of his spiritual journey are of help to many. But, emotionally, it hurts to have his back turned towards me and fingers flying away on the keyboard.

I've tried finding girlfriends to go for a walk with or hang out with, but usually individual friends aren't available on a Sunday afternoon.

"What would you like from Collin?" the counselor asked.

"If I could call on him on Sundays to be involved with me and know he wouldn't grump about it. Say, from 4 PM on."

He agreed.

Yesterday, that is Sunday, he had a big project to work on - preparing to teach thirty some Indonesian young adults next Friday night. I had my own project--reading a John Donne's poetry (for my MFA program) and the novel The Piano Teacher (Lee) for my book club.

At 4:30 I asked him if he would come away from the computer to sit on the couch with me. He did, until I started reading Donne aloud (you know poetry needs to be read out loud)! Moving merely five feet away gave him enough space to focus. He sat cross-legged with pen and notebook in hand and note cards spread on the bare wooden floor around him while I read aloud softly.

Every once in a while I'd look away from the poems to his handsome brown face. He felt my stare and glanced up with a smile. That was enough for me.

I need face time. And Facebook doesn't do it.

At the main computer his back is turned towards me. I can't see his face. Just shifting his position so that I can see his face helps me feel more connected.

Even though we're doing separate projects, I feel together when he works near me, available for face-time, at the couch or on the floor. This little thing works for me.

Gifts--Different Ways to See Them

The habits, motivations and expectations around gift-giving are key components of culture. Gifts bind people together or, when not given as expected, sting and separate people.

My family of origin white Californians; my parents formerly of the midwest. We only purchased gifts for Christmas and birthdays. Graduation of family members would bring a modest check, for those outside, a congratulations card. Our ancestors' roots were in Germany, England and Ireland. If they'd come from Italy, our beliefs about what was needful in gift-giving would have been different.

When I came into relationships with Asians, I blundered. My innocent ignorance of the lenses from which they viewed relationships caused big gaffes. I had no idea of their expectations of the host and guest relationship.

I went to Hawaii for the first time at age thirty, staying with a friend, I'll call Emi. Her parents were immigrants from Japan, living on Kauii. Emi's sister and husband offered to take us of a car tour of the island, and they took us to brunch at a elegant beach-side hotel with a splendid buffet loaded with sumptuous delicacies (I know I'm using too many adjectives, but it was heaped on adjective kind of place.) My family had never taken me to such a beautiful and expensive kind of place. I figured they must have lots of money since Emi's sister insisted on treating.

I was a naive recipient. I didn't realize that in their culture treating a guest lavishly was expected and not indicative of how much money they had. I had brought no gift for Emi or for her family because in my family culture we didn't do that. In my mind, this was going to be an equal exchange, for we had hosted Emi in our home in California, when she was on her way back to Hawaii after a semester at college.

I had met Emi on a short term mission to Japan a year earlier. At that time I brought many gifts (of the $15 - $25 range)for the pastor's family I'd stayed with and for others in the congregation. My preparation manual had told me to.

But no manual told me how to be gracious friends with someone whose family lived in Hawaii and had been on U.S. soil only one generation, not seven. (After six generations, the influence of the homeland largely wears off). My parents didn't counsel me to come with gifts in hand-they had never done that when staying with friends or family. I was clueless.

To them, living in a place where a guest arrives with a gift in had, I must have appeared ungrateful.

What a shock I had the fifth night into my stay in Hawaii as we lay in darkness in the bedroom we shared. My friend confided that I'd offended her sister, "Mariko." She didn't then, or ever, mention the lack of gifts brought, though that might well have been part of it into it.

The offense occurred when we had stopped at a small store while on our car tour. It was my host's idea to stop there because she believed I needed to buy items to take home. I had no idea she was thinking that. I looked around, but said I wouldn't buy anything, didn't have money to. After all, I'd grown up in a family who spent vacations camping and never bought gifts for ourselves or anyone else. "We don't have money for that," was a line I commonly heard.

What a collision of world views! For me that was just a simple statement of fact, something I thought was normal. In my world view we are each responsible for ourselves and if we have little money, we shouldn't buy.

But my listener had grown up in a predominantly Asian world of Hawaii where gifts are paramount in tying people together. Also Emi's parents were born in Japan so that influence loomed large. In Japan when one returns from a trip, however small a trip, one takes a little gift, omiyage, to family and close friends.

A whole industry has grown up around omiyage. People who live in out-of-the way, but scenic places, sell little packages of gift foods or handkerchiefs (a necessary item in Japan) or other memorabilia at roadside stands.

So Emi assumed that I needed to take home some gifts to family. Because I said I had no money to buy anything, she purchased a box of Macadamia nut chocolates for me to take home. Nice, I thought. I innocently received it, thinking she had a big heart, not knowing that as a host she felt obligated to provide me completely. Perhaps she felt driven to be a perfect host because I and my parents had done Emi some favors when she stayed with us in California.

Our favors were of the non-monetary kind--letting her stay over extra time with us when her airplane her canceled due to an airline strike and several trips to the airport. Plus, when she got taken in by someone's offer of a boarding pass and spent money on a useless ticket, we loaned her money to get home. In our economy, there was no need for payback for any of these things - no obligation incurred, just kindness that one friend does happily for another.

But I had landed in a culture where reciprocity is assumed. Emi and her sister probably felt she had a debt to us. I was ignorant of the web of differing perceptions and beliefs and how they impact each other. Furthering the misunderstanding was my cluelessness about unspoken rules regarding talk about money. It probably sounded to her like I said, "I need you to help me out. I'm poor."

If I had grown up in a different white family of a different class or culture, I might have said, instead, "No, I don't need any," instead of, "I don't have money to buy any." I had known Hawaiian-Japanese culture better, when Emi's sister mentioned stopping at a store, I might have said, "That's fine if you wish to stop, but don't do so for me. I don't need anything."

And if I'd been smart, I would have sent her a nice box of California dried fruits and nuts once I returned home to say, "Thank you" for taking us touring and the splendid buffet. They did an awful lot for me and I didn't reciprocate at all. On writing this, I wish to do so--34 years later!

Shattering the Image

Admit it. You stereotype. We all do. It's our way of dealing with the world.

We make generalizations about groups of people such as government employees--"those bureaucrats" or race, "Irish temper."

Sometimes our generalizations have a good basis, sometimes they don't. Not time to discuss how we come up with wrong stereotypes here. Generalizations are just a given. Linguists who study language and the way the brain works even have have a neutral word for them: schemas, or background knowledge.

What we need is the flexibility of mind to always remember that our background knowledge is not always valid. "This person in front of me is not just a member of a class or group. Not someone to treat according to the label I've assigned. She or he has the possibility to transcend their group, culture or class."

Now, when you think of a Japanese man, what do you imagine?

Probably not the man I encountered briefly today as I taught English to his wife. I'll call him "Haru." He with his wife live in the U.S. because they like the hours and flexibility of an American job - he doesn't need to stay at the workplace til 9 PM at night daily. She on the other hand has difficulty with aspects of American life and language, but to have her husband home at night--it's worth it all!

Today is a school holiday, but not a work holiday for Haru. He went to work late so he as to take care of their three young boys (ages 2, 5 and 7 approximately) while his wife could study English with no, actually I should say little, interruption.

When I went to use their toilet, Haru was occupied transferring laundry (it's an apartment and the machines were in the bathroom). Wow!

Then, 45 minutes in our lesson, the door to the bedroom opened. Haru came in with a round cherry wood tray. On it were two ceramic cups - ocha (green tea) for both me and his wife. I was touched.

Japanese men are not all the same. It's obvious when we say it, but we all forget at times and operate according to generalizations.

Let's pray today, "God help me to see each person as you see him or her. Help me to treat each as someone who may or may not be like what they appear to me. May I see each person as a treasure to be discovered."