I got an email a couple of weeks ago from a reader named Ryan. (Have I mentioned lately that I have the best readers? Because I totally do).
I liked him immediately because he turned Super-Evangelical-Jesus-Freak into its own special acronym (SEJF). I may just use it from now on because it’s so awesome.
Anyway, he had this brilliant thought:
We were packing away the Christmas stuff, and I thought about how back in my SEJF days, I would listen only to Christian music, of course. Now I generally can’t stand CCM, but I noticed that in my world, it’s still not Christmas until we play the Michael W. Smith Christmas album.
It made me think of what other things I must have deemed worth saving. I still wear my little wooden cross necklace. Under my shirt though, not on top where people can see it. Back in the day, you were supposed to wear them on top, so that everyone could see your “witness.” Turns out, it was mostly just bad advertising. But it grew into a different purpose, and that is to remind me that I am a Christian. I need to be reminded lots, and so it’s good to wear the necklace all the time. To be a reminder, though, only I have to know it’s there, so underneath it stays.
Anyway, it all made me wonder what you would say if you wrote about the things from your old faith that you still find helpful to the new.
I’ve been thinking about this question for a couple of weeks now. Because once I burned on fire for Jesus, and then I burned with anger and frustration, and then I languished in the ashes of Depression.
And now I’m sifting through. And there are always remnants.
You grow up, and you start looking critically at the past and at your former self. Some things pass away, but the things that remain usually have to do with faith, hope and love. Especially love.
So here’s my list. A few things I’ve kept:
All of my Christy Miller Books. You guys, I cannot seem to throw them away. (For those who are unfamiliar, this is a Christian teen romance series about a girl who falls in love with Jesus…and a handsome surfer boy named Todd.)
The covers are all pastel, and on the original book covers, Christy Miller has 80s hair and Todd’s shorts are pulled up wayyy too high. I own them all, including the spin-off Sierra Jenson books and the Christy Miller: The College Years trilogy. I haven’t read them in years, but there they sit, at the bottom of the bookshelf, where I hide most of the Christian fiction.
In those early days, I read and re-read those books. So much of Christy Miller’s story mirrored my own. The blond, SEJF boyfriend. The internal struggles. The waiting and the hoping and the heartbreak. The learning and the letting go. My facts and her fiction are so intertwined in my imagination that I almost can’t tell them apart.
And even though I’ve been through enough to see that these books are flawed and a tad reductive (not to mention fluffy) – those pastel covers remind me of a part of myself I don’t want to forget. That high school dreamer who still thinks she’s going to renovate a castle someday. That girl whose heart is untouched by cynicism. The one whose hands are open.
Christy Miller is that old friend that I’ve outgrown but still love. I keep the books around just in case I need that old, invented world: those evening bonfires at Newport beach where everyone loves God. And yes, it’s more complicated than all that…but it’s also not as complicated as I tend to make it these days. And sometimes I just want to see that silver Forever bracelet glinting bright in the setting sun.
My “accountability partners.” Once we met at a round table in Panera weekly, and we read each other selected excerpts from our journals and confessed our struggles. We said to each other Choose joy! and we cried over boys and stressed over AP tests. We got bored trying to read the book of Matthew straight through.
And it’s been years since we’ve called it “accountability” or sat at “our table” at Panera. But you can’t go through all the details of the SEJF high school experience without getting all knotted together at the soul.
We live far, but we meet when we can in various pockets of Wisconsin and Chicago. We met the weekend before Christmas in the Wisconsin Dells, and they sat cross-legged on hotel beds, hair wrapped in towels, while I told them, teary-eyed, about our new church.
Our faith all looks a little different now. We burned bright, and then we burned out. But we are reaching. We are doing it at highboy tables over margaritas. We are doing it short and sweet in text messages and emails.
We’re all still a little tied up together in this thing. If one of us starts falling, we all fall a little. When we move it’s like some awkward three-legged race. But still, a little bit at a time, we’re moving forward.
Jennifer Knapp. OK, honestly, I still have all of my Christian “rock,” filed away in boxes somewhere. (It’s too nostalgic to throw away.) But the only CDs I’ve listened to with any regularity these past years are those of my girl, Jennifer Knapp.
She was the opening act of the first Christian concert I ever went to – a lone figure on a stool in the middle of the stage.
Once, my friend Molly and I took the train downtown to see her (and The Ws) at Moody bookstore. We brought the CD dust jacket with us (remember those?) and sang harmonies while the Chicago suburbs rolled into city.
There was something about her lyrics that always felt so poetic and honest to me, and when I listen to them now, I still hear it: the beauty. The struggle. The doubt and faith all mixed up together.
She “disappeared” from the SEJF scene around the same time I did. I remember reading an article where she talked about how overwhelming the Christian music industry felt to her. She talked about being in “cement box rooms at the back of arenas” trying to quick write something beautiful and inspiring for a record…and I can picture that so clearly, because I felt it too: that pressure to keep manufacturing spiritual insight. To never show that you were struggling; to just keep giving it to Jesus in loud, murmured prayer.
She’s back now, singing again, and she’s openly gay. And I don’t want to get into a debate here about Christianity and homosexuality…but what I do want to say is that I can identify with someone who went away and is trying to come back. With someone who no longer fits the mold but is forging ahead anyway, trying to figure it out the best she can.
This ugly quilt made of my old Witness-Wear t-shirts. I cut all the old shirts into squares during the last weeks of my senior year of high school. Then, to make it even better, I bought ugly, patterned fabric that I felt would remind me of each of my friends and added that too.
My Mom helped me sew it into a quilt with lots of extra white squares, and I brought it to Youth Group Beach Night one night and had everyone sign it the last week of summer. It seemed really sweet at the time.
Pinterest-users and sentimentalists beware: if you sew all of your old, ugly t-shirts into a quilt and have people sign it, you’re never, ever going to be able to throw it away. And t-shirt quilts are bulky and take up lots of space. Consider yourself warned.
My prayer journals. They fill one entire Rubbermaid, crushed at the bottom of my storage room. The box is so heavy that I can barely move it out. (Hence this blurry, storage-room photo.)
In retrospect, I wish I would have written more details about my life. I wrote little about specific events and rarely described people. At fifteen, the details seem minimal in comparison to emotions and passion…and you figure that you’ll remember all those little, important things forever anyway. (Spoiler alert: You don’t.)
Still, I think there is something there, in all these journals. They make it impossible to simplify and write-off the past. They make it hard to dismiss the girl who was me because her heart is so genuine – full of praise and prayer, joy and hope. She is unafraid to ask. She believes it will be given.
And I think there is something important about preserving the history of our hearts. We scrapbook and create photo albums of events all the time. The pages of my prayer journals are a kind of photo book too: they are still shots of a soul.
They remind me who I was. They remind me how far He has brought me.
*
I rarely ask direct questions here because it seems weird and it reminds me of those fill-in-the-blank Bible studies that I hate. But this is such a good question.
What remains for you? What did you keep? I’d love to know.
I LOVE this post. You are making me think about those years that formed my faith. Years I wouldn’t necessarily want to do over but also wouldn’t trade for anything because they shaped me into who I am today. I’ll have to get back to you on the question.
Agreed. Thanks Shelly!
addie, the sight of those prayer journals, all stacked and crushed, makes me want to cry. i think it is so beautiful and poignant (and i am a bit jealous, since i was always terrible at journaling).
i love how my faith has grown and stretched to include so much now (common prayer in the mornings, for instance). but my one constant i go back to is worship music. i’ll be damned if i don’t listen to it every.single.day. there was a period of time when this wasn’t true, but i can’t help it (well, i take turns listening to podcasts and then worship music as i go about my day). i can’t help it: it feels like it centers me. (wow, this is true confessions time).
also, lately i feel compelled to pick up the guitar (well, ukulele banjo) again and sing my guts out to god. so we shall see how that goes.
thanks for being so real with us.
I’m getting back to worship music a little bit myself. Slow steps. Certain voices (so much depends on the right voice across the board in faith, don’t you think?). I love your ukebanjo; you are my hero.
Addie – I’ve only been following your blog for a few weeks, but I am so glad I found it. You write beautifully and do such an amazing job of walking that line between critiquing your past and still embracing what was good.
Jennifer Knapp! Most of my CCM music is still at my parents’ house somewhere (some cassettes even!), but I still love Jennifer Knapp and if I listen to Christian music, it is almost always hers.
I have no idea how I didn’t read Christy Miller… I don’t know for certain, but it might have been that she had a boyfriend, and my parents were Joshua Harris fans who had kissed dating goodbye for me. I did and still do, however, have an entire library of Janette Oke books in a plastic tub in my basement. I rarely read fiction anymore and if I did, it wouldn’t be that type, but I can’t get rid of them.
Thank you for this walk down SEJF memory lane!
Thanks for the kind words, Trischa. Yeah, I don’t think Christy Miller would strike the same chord if you picked it up now. Bygones, I guess. (Sorry about the kissing dating goodbye business. I had a boyfriend who kissed dating goodbye while we were dating, myself, so I have a long-standing grudge against Josh Harris. True story.)
From my childhood Christianity – I wasn’t a SEJF, I was a BBFF (Bible-banging fundamentalist freak) – I kept only 1 copy of the beloved King James Bible that my dad hand-dedicated to me for my 16th birthday and in which I have lists of references to verses on almost any subject I might need when “witnessing” to someone. That’s it.
From my 21-23 year old stint as a SEJF, I have Jennifer Knapp. One Sonicflood CD because I really DID get to see the face of God once while listening. My kids rock out to it now and then in the living room, and it is sort of surreal, but good. A copy of the NIV Bible that replaced my KJV, complete with all my notes in the covers, this time with every Bible reference that could deal with my own need for Grace. I also have an NLT because sometimes it was more “poetic” (and was suddenly accepted as a “proper” Bible translation in my SEJF church). I also have lots of journals, and pictures I can’t seem to throw away. Because no matter how much being in a SEJF church destroyed my faith in the end, during the in-between years, I grew miles in my ability to relate to a personal Jesus (other recovering BBFF’s will understand what I mean: BBFF’s see Jesus as an arbitrator – or at best the propitiation – but not a personal friend).
This was so good to read. For one thing, it will help me feel even more free next time I’m rocking out to Knapp’s “Refine Me” in the car!
BBFF! Love it! Love what you kept from both of those “seasons” of your faith. And Refine Me! Sooo good.
I still have my Janette Oke and Catherine Marshall books, somewhere, along with a Christian T-shirt or two, and my old, marked-up Bible. And some of those gazillion memory verses did stick in my head, after all.
Christy Miller! Haven’t thought about her in forever. Thanks for this post, Addie. Both fun and moving.
I have my old marked-up Bible somewhere too, still in its Jesus Freak Bible cover. It feels sort of wrong to throw away a Bible, right?
Addie – I have boxes of journals too! My husband hates moving them in and out of storage, from one house to the next, but I can’t part with them. They are my story inked for history.
I actually did a purge a few years back – all the books on deliverance ministry, spiritual mapping and soul ties had to go. Don’t regret that move at all.
I have a playlist of favorite Vineyard songs that I seldom listen to, but I like knowing they are there. Maranatha Music takes me way back – and hearing those songs transport me to high school and some of the worst bible studies ever!
Those days really have melted away – or morphed into something other. But the journals and music endure, quietly there if I want to revisit.
SO HEAVY. I know. But what are you going to do? I love the idea of the journals and music being there quietly…in case you need it. That’s how it is for me too.
Goodness, this is a trip down memory lane. I, too, have alllll my Christy Miller books (and the Sierra Jansen series!) I, too, have alllll my Christian CDs. And my prayer journals. The only thing I have been eager to toss are the tshirts.
I will probably get rid of my CDs at some point in the near future – that box ways about 2 tons – but the prayer journals I will keep. They were really the beginning of my journey as a writer, and they are, as you say, a snapshot of my heart back then. It’s a good reminder that the thing I carry around with me now, the cynicism, isn’t worth keeping.
*weighs* sheesh. How embarrassing is that.
I love what you said about the cynicism. (And as for the CDs, I tossed all the cases and bought some of those cute little CD filing boxes. That’s where all of my albums have gone for now. Takes up way less space and still there if I need a trip down memory lane.)
Addie, dear. I have to giggle. My dad was a pastor and he would have wrung my neck if I wanted to go to a Christian concert. We NEVER listened to Christian music. I didn’t even know it existed until i went to college! that just cracks me up! We went to church. We had bible study. But none of this. I do though understand this. This sort of looking back abashed, blushing, embarrassed by and for that kid you were. (Am I reading too much?) these are good things that grounded you. These are good things that brought you to here, and further. I’m thankful that there are those who had that.
I definitely think I grew up in a sort of golden age of Christian products. It seems like people are more wary of the subculture now than we were then, when Focus on the Family was so influential and there was a safe, Christian alternative to everything you could think of.
Adventures in Odyssey. We kids would each get a compliation set from the Easter Bunny in our Easter basket and from Santa in our Christmas stocking on Christmas morning. (Not sure Focus on the Family would have been happy to know that made-up pagan myths were giving impressionable children such spiritual treasures…but I digress…). My brothers and I tallied it up once, and we could listen to AiO 24/7 for almost two weeks straight…
There’s just something about Eugene and Whit and Whit’s End that captured my imagination. If I ever have kids, I think I’ll whip those out.
I never listened to those as a kid, but I borrowed a set from someone the year I was a nanny and in charge of shuffling the kids around to their various activities. Good stuff. I have fond memories of listening to it on the way too and from gymnastics.
I was always been kind of a black sheep in my church. The music I listened to was made by Christians, but almost all of it was banned from Christian bookstores for one reason or another. I still listen to a lot of it because they were always be real and brutally honest about faith and struggles. Jennifer Knapp seemed too CCM for me. But when she came out, her music became much more interesting to me because it meant she was being real in an industry full of rich people complaining about the trials of getting carpel tunnel syndrome for Jesus. She was by far not the first gay Christian musician that I listened to (Sean Doty, Ric Alba, and Dug Pinnick among others were out long before Knapp – see Down the Line magazine’s Homosexuality, God, and The Church issue). But a few weeks after I thought about giving her music a second chance, I found all three of her CCM CD’s on a shelf at Half-priced Books for $1 each. You never see CDs by the same artist together on the clearance shelf at Half-Priced, so that must have meant that someone traded them all in when she came out and they just got put on the shelf. So I grabbed them – they are some great CDs. Not as heavy or as alternative as I usually like, but still good.
An underground of subversive Christian music at the height of CCM?! I should have known. But I didn’t. I was way too good-girl for that.
I brought back a rainbow wwjd bracelet recently.
I totally had one of those too. Rainbow striped and everything…though at the time, the connection to LGBT culture never occurred to me. I just thought it was cute. I love that you brought it back.
Oh dear:
Years of journals
My required KJV from high school (sentiment has me holding onto it) with the Romans Road outlined in it
A Third Day cassette
My former AP who is my best friend forever now
A t-shirt from my inauguration into a Christian sorority
Most items are in a plastic storage bin in my attic
Mine too. I actually have saved a lot in that Rubbermaid in the storage room. I probably would have thrown more of it away, but I write so much about that time of my life, and you never know when you’re going to need some throwback inspiration.
Ditto to the Christy Miller books. “As You Wish” indeed.
And love Carra’s AIO shout-out. Man, we Loved those.
Jennifer Knapp. Yes. All three of her cd’s are in my car. It’s them squashed in between a dozen kids cds. And they are the only christian music I still have (aside from a couple random hymns/christmas carols cds…)
I agree that it was the struggle in her music that I loved. I couldn’t even quite identify with it yet, or at least I was too much of a SCJF to admit to myself I could, but she sang so simply and so beautifully about doubt and faith all mixed up together that she made me believe that maybe it was possible to have both.
Still, on days which I feel unmoored she’s who I want to listen to. She’s cranked up in my mom-mobile when I’m in it by myself and I have that familiar sense of longing for more grace and love and God.
And when I heard she was openly gay I actually sighed in relief for her. Like she was a good friend who I’d known for YEARS was struggling internally so much with something, but never quite what. And I just want to hug her and say, “I’m so glad you’re singing again because woman, God made you to write music.”
And Addie, God made you to write to us. I feel similarly toward you as I do toward Jennifer Knapp. The freedom that comes from hearing from someone who is real and honest and still gentle and wanting grace.
Thanks so much Janice. What a compliment! (And also, you’ve totally inspired me to throw all of my Jennifer Knapp CDs in the car. We’re making a longish drive today, and I’m really hoping I can get my kid to let me turn off the stink-bug CD and let Mama choose the tunes.)
Per a pinterest idea, I just crafted a bunch of my camp t-shirts into reusable shopping bags. I couldn’t bear to just toss them, but there are only so many “I’ll keep it for working out” shirts a person who only goes to the gym once a month can justify. They don’t really work so great, but I’ll probably keep them anyway.
I made a few T-shirt bags too. One out of the Reading is Sexy t-shirt that is now too small and that I bring to the library sometimes. The straps are kind of flimsy though. I’m always afraid it’s going to rip through. (But yeah, it’s a great idea.)
I can’t remember for sure but I imagine we first bonded over our love of Christy Miller. I still have those and Sierra Jenson, and the Glenbrooke series. I might even have a Palisades romance in there, too. I didn’t keep much CCM music but I believe I still have the DC Talk “Jesus Freak” album. And as a perk of working at a Christian bookstore, I have autographed posters and signs from The Supertones, Point of Grace, Jars of Clay, Jennifer Knapp, and so on. They’re tucked away in my cedar chest. I still have Jennifer’s first two CDs and I’ve been meaning to listen to her latest effort. I’m still an unabashed fan of Bebo Norman. I have a t-shirt blanket compiled of youth group and other high school related shirts. I did not use the fancy extra fabric like you did. It’s in the stack of blankets I keep in the living room. Some day I’ll retire it to the cedar chest but for now it warms my heart to see it.
It’s good to remember what I’ve held on and think about why.
Yes, I think the extra fabric was my key error. And the signatures were a sweet idea, but after so many washings, they’re a little hard to read. Should have just had my friends sign a yearbook like everyone else does. Woops.
Oh, how I wish I saved my signed Connie Scott “Spirit Mover” poster. I am glad that I hung onto the solid church history and biblical teaching that I gained from a very traditional upbringing. Although I wasn’t thrilled about being at church pretty much any time it was open, it did give me a solid foundation.
Yes. Me too.
All my Michael W Smith CDs, and I too have the old pastel-covered Christy Miller series. And some Rebecca St James kicking around too I believe.
Oh Rebecca! I’d forgotten about her!
I have a tote full of Brio magazines. Not just the issues from my 7+ years as a subscriber, but the hand-me-down back issues from friends at church. It took me ages to finally recycle the giant stack of Campus Lifes, all dripping with prepaid forms to check off and receive free info from various Christian colleges. I was finally able to part with them when I realize that I no longer needed eighteen thousand guides to getting along with roommates. Still, I can’t get rid of the Brios yet because they remind me of the days I felt so alone and the way they made me feel a little less alone. I once justified storing them because “there are so many great articles to pass on to my children,” but let’s be honest; if I have children, they are not going to want to read about how to put together the best outfit from 1995 or whether Savage Garden is appropriate music.
That CD was also one of my staples and remains one of the few that has followed me into adulthood. I love that it’s one of the longstanding common links between all these commenters!
I reread all the Christy Miller books last Christmas vacation just to see if it was the same. I wanted to punch Todd and his sun-streaked hair in the face repeatedly. But I’ll still probably keep them forever.
Hahahahaha! Love that.
Seriously Todd. Seriously.
That cracks me up. I think I kept one Brio, just for the nostalgia of it. It’s the one that features Out of Eden and their official Brio photo-shoot was done at some amusement park.
That was the first issue of Brio I ever received! Bright colors! Modest fashion! Carnival rides! I don’t know why I still remember this.
I’ve still got bandboxes of cassettes! Agapeland, etc, and most importantly, all my GT and the Halo Express! Did anyone else have those? I’m allowing my 3 year old to listen to them now and marveling to hear him learning Bible verses effortlessly. The only one of those that gives me any conflict, actually, is the God’s Plan of Salvation one. I’m bracing myself for having to talk about why he doesn’t need to approach each and every one of the popular kids at school and tell them they’re sinners in need of salvation, or if he does, why it probably won’t work as smoothly as it did on that cassette…
To this day, there are some Bible verses I can only quote from memory when I sing them ala GTatHE!!
Yay! I knew I wasn’t the only one
It’s also why I can’t move on from the NIV even though I know it’s very flawed as a translation.
I totally had GT too…but I think I only had the Plan of Salvation one. I can still sing Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23 to the exact right melody. (And yes, the sharing of the Gospel was quite formulaic. It so does not go that smoothly.)
Addie,
I too have a Rubbermaid of prayer journals that I just can’t seem to part with.
On a different note, my roomie did get me “Go West, Young Man” on CD for Christmas as a throwback. We’re not exactly laughing AT Michael W. Smith … but, well, kinda.
Kinda feel like that Silas should have that song playing in his room at some point…
You’re hilarious, Carra! <3
<3 back.
Love it. I can’t decide which album cover I like better. That one (oh purple suit coat and weird polka dot…turtleneck?) or the one from Michael W. Smith II, where he’s leaping through and 80s backdrop with white pants and a…sweatervest? (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000004QY/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0000004QY&linkCode=as2&tag=howtotaleva-20“>II)
Holy cow. I seriously just moved all my fiction books off my bookshelf for a renovation project the other day and told someone that maybe it was time to not display my Christy Miller (and Sienna, and Katie, and those adult books she wrote that occasionally mention all those people… please tell me you know about those?!?) collection(s) so prominently. But I can’t imagine giving them away, either. And Jen Knapp – still love her so. I never saw her in concert during her first go-round, but I had the privilege of seeing her first comeback concert at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville. The room exploded when she started “Undo Me” and I am pretty sure there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. It was an incredible thing to witness.
I just had someone ask me if I’d read the Sisterchicks series by the same author! I was trying to superawkwardly finagle my way out of explaining that all my Robin Jones Gunn books went into hiding…
Ugh. I tried the Sisterchicks, but the name just immediately set me on edge. Sisterchicks?? Really?
I keep hoping she’ll come to Minneapolis. I would LOVE to see her in concert.
Love this post. I kept my journals from my SEJF days and they really have been a help in my blog writing. But I do wish I had recorded more about my every day life rather than so many sermon notes and prayers of desperate longing.
I don’t feel ready to read my old prayer journals. Not sure if they’ll mke me mad, depressed, or just plain embarrased.
Give it time. I can’t read mine for very long stretches of time either, and when I do, I feel all of those emotions in some measure.
Me too. Me too.
Well, I knew I was old. Yes, I knew that. But wow, this long list just underscores that truth BIG TIME. What I have kept? The music from my childhood – gospel hymns are forever locked in my memory bank. The beauty of going forward for communion when I was a Methodist, age 3-12. Catherine Marshall, C.S. Lewis (who transcends eras). I did not listen to Christian music as a teen – I’m not sure it existed outside of Tennessee. Music is the dominant thread, though I don’t listen anymore at all. I’ve come to value silence so much, that outside of corporate worship, I do very little singing anymore. And I used to do a LOT – in choirs from age 5 until I moved to Santa Barbara 16 years ago. Maybe that will shift again…
I don’t think that it’s necessarily a bad thing that you missed the Christian culture explosion of the 80s/90s (though if you want, I’d be happy to send you your very own Starter Kit with a little old-school Michael W. Smith, a few Christy Miller books, and your own Jesus-fish t-shirt…)
(I find that I need silence more too these days.)
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I have actually been thinking about this a lot lately, too, Addie. I rarely comment, but I wanted to weigh in on this. I was raised in a charismatic/evangelical environment, which is basically torture for introverts. I always felt like a fake. In college, I worked at a Christian bookstore, and that is where I met my husband. We left the evangelical church for a mainline American Baptist church ten years ago this month. What ended up happening was that we dropped it all. Dropped it and ran as fast as we could. We still have our CDs but we never listen to them. Old t-shirts but I never made a quilt like I thought I would. Over the years, we have weeded out all those books we got from the store. I burned all my journals. And that was good, but we were foundation-less for a while. Now we have a son, and we are starting to think more specifically about what and how to teach him, and we are having to address some of those things we abandoned.
In Girl Meets God, Lauren Winner talks about rebuilding her Jewish library, and that’s what I think I am doing now, starting to be able to look back and see if there is any of the past that I do want to honor and keep. Or at least accept, if not embrace.
(I addressed this a teeny tiny bit in what I posted today. I think the Natalie Goldberg quote is pertinent to this discussion.
http://throughaglass.net/archives/2013/01/31/where-you-come-from/ )
I love, love, love that blog post…and that quote from Natalie Goldberg is perfect. This idea of finding a way to own who you were. I also loved your analogy about not knowing where the bruises on your legs came from and that stunning tie to the “heart of flesh.” Beautiful and brilliant. Thanks so muh for sharing.
(Oh, and I also love the idea of rebuilding the library. Maybe it’s time to go through and get rid of some of the old books and start collecting the new ones.)
I just popped over and read your post Kari–I too thought it was wonderful!
(Oh, and my Christy Miller books are definitely still around somewhere.)
Of course they are.
“What I do want to say is that I can identify with someone who went away and is trying to come back. With someone who no longer fits the mold but is forging ahead anyway, trying to figure it out the best she can.”
This is why you had to come back again, too, you know.
Thanks so much Renee. This comment gave me chills. (In a good way.)
I was a BBFF too. What have I kept? Almost all of my headscarves, which is peculiar, because 15yrs later I still can’t actually put them on for longer than 10sec. But I just can’t bring myself to throw them out because so many of them are actually beautiful pieces of silk. I see the beauty in them, and I remember the way I actually enjoyed feeling different when I wore them. Maybe I need more therapy…
I’ve still got the King James bible my Dad sent me after I left – it was our family bible that he used to read from, and I can still see the places his fingers wore out the gilt on the edges of the pages
I’ve still got my hymnbook, and the last dress I got made by a dressmaker before I left – it’s long and black and swishy with gorgeous silver buttons and I wore it to the ballet a few years later
I love the image of that finger-worn Bible. So beautiful.