digging into it: III

shifting outline
these wandering thoughts
alighting and flurrying on and around my head
while sitting on a padded folding chair in a Presbyterian sanctuary in Seobingo, Seoul
while not paying attention to what the preacher man was talking about
they followed me onto the bus,
waited w/ me while i waited to transfer to the next bus
and nipped at my rubber soles as i climbed that steep hill
up to my building
they chopped up zucchinis for me
while i sliced the onions for dinner

out loud: i can't do this anymore. i need a distraction. shut my brain down for a while. a movie. yes. something mindless.
right when i popped a nonsensical comedy into my computer, my phone rang.
"what're you doing?"
not a whole lot of anything. why? what you up to?
"nothing in about an hour. do you want to come over and cuddle w/ me?"
slumber party?
"if you'll come."
i'll bring snacks.

i trudged towards the train station and listened to Greg Boyd on my iPod. this was my 3rd nighttime stroll through the forested hilly Yonsei campus this weekend. i love that i'm 30 years old and have the freedom and enough enthusiasm to head to a slumber party late on a Sunday night.
Boyd was talking about the 'returning to innocence'.

as he spoke, i thought about how often i have lost my way. my child likeness.
my identity caught up w/ my notions about things that i was supposed to do, the person i was supposed to be. as much as it bothers me to say this, i have subconsciously struggled hard to follow the "rules" and fell into structures that didn't even make sense to me.

in Luke 18:15-18, Jesus pointed to a group of children and spoke of how God's Kingdom belongs to those w/ childlike hearts.
i know how cliche it all is, but hell:
He wants my heart to be playful, full of summer sunshine joy. He wants me to climb back through that small window of time during which i didn't know about the mires of pain and savagery that came along w/ walking these miles. that time before ugliness sandpapered calluses into my mind and heart. before the violence of this sick world left me w/ scars on my forehead and across the bridge of my nose.

i have passing childhood recollections of that kind of deep security in the warmth of my mother's arms. even as a young young girl, she knew i had a hard time sleeping. when she'd find me wide-eyed in the dark, she'd sometimes hold me and sing softly until i would finally fall asleep.

i don't often tell the stories of my two major life tragedies--the story of the swinging bottle and hysterical laughter when the cop Polaroided my bloody face. the in depth recounting of what happened in my failed marriage and the shitty months thereafter.

but there are moments when it only makes sense to go there.
in pjs, snuggled up with blankets, cushy pillows, and surrounded by a pile of midnight snacks w/ a friend. while we spoke of the things that makes our pulses race and our faces flush w/ excited happiness, these tragedies came up. these large fucked up wrinkles that will forever mark my life history, but will also forever be incontrovertible evidence of Him for me in my life.
despite the graphic and bloody nature of my account, there were several moments of uncontrollable laughter at my spontaneous responses to these crazy circumstances.

"i know i shouldn't be laughing, i'm so sorry."
don't be sorry. i'm glad that i can laugh too.
"i just can't believe you said that to the guy who attacked you... or the cop... or to the pastor... or to your ex-husband."
this is beginning to sound like the start of some really bad joke.
"it's so unbelievable that you can be smiling right now about all of this stuff."
...smiling? not always. but, it's strange, isn't it?
"i don't know if i could be laughing or happy like you are today."
happy?

...am i happy?--i've been told that i seem like i'm a very happy kind of person several times in the past six months. having identified myself to be chronically depressed for such a long time, it's hard to shake that ingrained element of my self portrait.

but, maybe i am happy. a happy person?
this is bizarre to consider.
perhaps this is part of the outline i'm trying to re-draw.