Big Words

It's funny, how when you're little and everything looks so big. Then you go back to your old house and you realize, it wasn't so big, you were just very small. Things are like that. But I think words are like that too. Who doesn't inwardly just die inside when they hear an adult say things to a small child like "You're a loser," though we may sometimes speak to other adults that way. But it's not the same thing with kids. 

One of my earliest memories was sitting in front of the TV at the little white Tacoma house, with a big coffee can of coloring crayons and coloring books. My Grandpa was there and he looked over my shoulder and said something about my drawing to my mom. "Yes," my mom said, "We noticed that. Kerri is an artist." 

And there you have it, that word, the first word I conciously defined myself with, maybe right after "girl" and my name. My mom put it right there like a seed in my heart and it bore right down into the center and grew there and if anyone tried to pull it out after that, my heart would have come right out with it. "Kerri is an artist." 

Enter Jesus

I don't know what prompted the neighbors to load up their car and take a bunch of us kids to a childens' evalgelism service. They were certainly not the religious family on the block. But they did, for some reason.

It was in a theater setting, with a stage, not a church. And it showed me some very interesting things. First, there was this thing called "sin". They demonstrated "sin" by having a girl walk up to a boy on stage and wrench his money out of his hands. This was shockingly naughty. I never saw anyone do such a thing, but apparently they did because the people on the stage said so. They also told us that sin doesn't always show up to the normal human eye, but god ALWAYS sees it. They showed us this was so, by showing us that the girl looked normal to us, but when you took a black light and shined it on her, there was SHINY STUFF ALL OVER HER CLOTHES! 

OK, this was very surprising, and interesting. I didn't know I had sin, and that god was unhappy with me. I thought our whole relationship was him protecting me from the "Darkmanintherobinhoodhat". But apparently there was a thing called sin, and it showed up under black lights. This was something worth knowing. I thought black lights were for making posters look all bright. I vowed never to go near them again. 

But wait! There was Jesus. Jesus could take the sinthatshowsupunderblacklights away. He could clean all that stuff up, and when it didn't show anymore then god could be happy with me again and we could go back to our former arrangement of protcting me from the darkmanintherobinhoodhat. 

This seemed like a good deal. Also, I had heard of Jesus. I don't remember where from, but I vaguely remember that I felt like he liked kids and was nice. So of course I wanted Jesus. I scrambled off my seat and prayed along with the other kids to "accept Jesus into my heart." 

Phew, crisis averted. 

Dear God

Here I am again.... I hope all is well with you. I have been thinking about our relationship lately, all the twists and turns. Though, we both know, I am almost always thinking about you, trying to figure you out. I've never been very good at letting go of a question, have I? Well, I was thinking, you know I do better if I write things down. And I get writer's cramp in the hands so easily now. I thought I would type instead. And if I'm going to type, I might as well blog. I thought we would go over what we've learned so far, in these past 48 yrs. Would that be good? Maybe I can untangle this ball of yarn. That or make it worse, its always one or the other, isn't it? 

You remember, the first home I remember, the first place, was Tacoma, Washington. Of course, I was born in Castro Valley, but all the nudie parties in the park by our house freaked my dad out, and he took me and my mom up to Washington, for a more "family friendly lifestyle." To the little white house on Locust Street.  There's where I began looking around at the world and thinking about things. There were neighbors there to meet, kids to play with, the elderly couple I liked to help garden. There was also a witch in the big tree in our back yard. I knew she was there because the branches made the shape of a witch's head, like a cobbler's sign outside his shop. And when the wind blew through it, she shook and laughed. I wasn't afraid of the witch. She had her business and I had mine. The dark shadows that walked around my room at night, though, were terrifying. There was one that had a black cloak and a Robin's Hood cap. He was particularly clear to me, and very scary. He would wander around my room, like he was looking for something. I would lie, frozen, waiting for him to leave. Then I would dash to my mom's room and find shelter in her bed. 

My mom would never turn me away, she could never bear to see me unhappy. But I guess my dad must have gotten fed up, because after a while they started telling me "Pray to god when you are afraid." and then I couldn't go to their room anymore.  If there is one constant companion as consistent in my life as you, it is fear. So that is where we met, I guess, when I was in bed praying that you would protect me from the dark man.