if walls could talk...

so, the location of our school is finally moving. it's big, it's beautiful, it's by the water, and we love it. to sort of pay homage to the walls that have housed us up to this point, we were asked to write stories speaking to where in the "old building" had we seen the face of God. we had our last student leadership meeting in the building tonight. my last class in the building is a week from tomorrow. my story to a sweet farewell?

I can't possibly be diggin' him, can I? I mean, he's just so not my type. But I can't take my eyes off of him. I watch him across the room, mingling with all sorts of people. We're just friends, I think. He's a good friend, fun to be around. That's all it is. I don't like him, like him. Do I? I wish he was in my group. These bookmarks are so lame. It would be more enjoyable if he were in my group. I mean, as my friend.

It was New Student Orientation. September, two thousand six. Large Classroom. He was wearing a plaid blue and white shirt with shiny white snaps down the front and jeans. I found him instantly in the crowd of students and faculty. We were just friends then. I tried to talk myself out of his irresistible charm and cuteness. I was not dating for a year. Not anyone. And that was final.

Two weeks later we kissed. One year later he proposed. Eight months from now, I'm walking down the aisle to marry the man of my dreams. I met him and have grown to know him within these walls. And in this story, I have seen many times the face of God. I see God often in the face of the man wearing the plaid blue and white shirt with shiny white snaps down the front and jeans.

of mind, body, and blood

Lying in bed, my eyes glued to the pages. Comfortably leaning against my wall with two fluffy pillows at my back and a fan blowing in the background, I was entranced by the author's insight, wisdom, and phenomenal articulation of a master-mind theory. I couldn't get enough of this book. It was brilliant.

Suddenly, I needed to reposition the 600 pages in my cramping hands. As I was rushing to finish a page's last paragraph, I noticed the strangest feeling spread across my fingers. Reading the last word of the page, I glanced down at the fingers supporting my new favorite text book. My eyes met red. Dark red. Blood red. My brain finally caught up with the images absorbed by my eyes as I watched streams of blood trickle down my thumbs to the protruding bones of each wrist. I licked my lips, blotted them together. Blood? Yes, blood.

I threw off my covers, launched the book onto the floor, and searched to find the spout of the fountain. My t-shirt was drenched. Spots of blood on my chest, my sleeves, and down the belly of the shirt. I searched frantically. One would think I had started my period in some sort of explosion. I traced the blood lines from my wrist bones up to my thumbs. I found spouts on each of my thumbs, where my flesh was torn to shreds, as if massacred by a thousand needles. I brought my fingers to my mouth, placing them gently on the lowest lip. I felt a tinge of pain shoot up the back of my neck. The outer layers of skin across my lips must have been attacked by the same needles. The lowest lip was tender, wet with blood, and swollen in all the wrong places. I used my already tainted shirt to wipe off the trickling blood. I lifted the shirt off of my confused and trembling body. More blood. It was coming from a scratch on the left side of my chest...only skin away from where my beating heart quivered.

Just as I have yet to adequately explain to myself all that happened in those moments between the book, the author, my stories, and me, I will not attempt to make sense of it for you. I write this sort of to remember the connection that is the human body. I was reading a book that as far as I knew consciously, I really enjoyed. I also was reading a book that somehow, someway invited me to direct my emotional experience onto and through my very own flesh. I was reading a book that intruded into my subconscious and discovered things that maybe my conscious mind would rather not see. My mind, conscious and not, was connected by means of mutilation to my body...and my body was connected to my soul by means of a well-placed scratch right above my bleeding heart.