Oh, sigh.  Le blog.

Sometimes (a lot of times), I come to this space and watch the curser blink – blink – blink, just not knowing what to say.  These posts provide such a tiny glimpse into my reality, it’s hard to attempt to paint an accurate picture of what’s going on.  What you see here is a small window – what I don’t communicate far outweighs what I do.

I’m in a strange season right now.  One might argue that I’ve been in a “strange season” for almost 2 years – or almost 30.  I’ve been waiting for a change in the tides, a shift in the forecast – but it’s nowhere to be seen.  And so I walk and wait, and listen and ask, and hope to God that I feel some wind on my face soon.

But last Friday, I cried for the first time in a long time.  I was there on Greta’s couch, telling her honest words that have been stuffed down inside, finally feeling it so necessary, so vital, to just lay my fears bare.  She listened (something she is so good at), and asked questions (another skill of hers).  And then, she compared my life to a big room, and said that it seems I’ve relegated myself to a very, very small corner – that, having ruled out all other areas as “unsafe,” I’ve retreated to the perimeter.

And it’s true.  My back is to the wall – but at least it can’t get stabbed, right?

I’ve recently found myself stiff-arming friends and community in the name of self-protection.  I didn’t used to be this way – I’ve always been ultra-connected and involved with the people around me – but lately, it just hasn’t felt all that safe to let the walls down.

So I’m safe.  But I’m lonely.

In some ways, my life here in Denver looks very, very different than what I had hoped for.  But I don’t know that that’s anybody’s fault but mine.

Sometimes, when life feels uncertain and I feel crazy, it’s good to remember that I have not been given a spirit of fear, but the power of love and a sound mind.

Taken from “Teaching a Stone to Talk”:

One cold Christmas Eve, I was up unnaturally late because we had all gone out to dinner – my parents, my baby sister, and I.  We had come home to a warm living room, and Christmas Eve. Our stockings drooped from the mantle; beside them, a special table bore a bottle of ginger ale and a plate of cookies.

I had taken off my fancy winter coat and was standing on the heat register to bake my shoe soles and warm my bare legs.  There was a commotion at the front door; it opened, and cold winter blew around my dress.

Everyone was calling me.  “Look who’s here! Look who’s here!”  I looked. It was Santa Claus.  Whom I never – ever – wanted to meet.  Santa Claus was looming in the doorway and looking around for me.  My mother’s voice was thrilled: “Look who’s here!”  I ran upstairs.

Like everyone in his right mind, I feared Santa Claus, thinking he was God.  I was still thoughtless and brute, reactive.  I knew right from wrong, but had barely tested the possibility of shaping my own behavior, and then only from fear, and not yet from love.  Santa Claus was an old man whom you never saw, but who nevertheless saw you; he knew when you’d been bad or good.  He knew when you’d been bad or good! And I had been bad.

My mother called and called, enthusiastic, pleading; I wouldn’t come down.  My father encouraged me; my sister howled.  I wouldn’t come down, but I could bend over the stairwell and see: Santa Claus stood in the doorway with night over his shoulder, letting in all the cold air of the sky; Santa Claus stood in the doorway monstrous and bright, powerless, ringing a loud bell and repeating Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.  I never came down.  I don’t know who ate the cookies.

For so many years now I have known that this Santa Claus was actually a rigged-up Miss White, who lived across the street, that I confuse the dramatis personae in my mind, making Santa Claus, God, and Miss White an awesome, vulnerable trinity.  This is really a story about Miss White.

Miss White was old; she lived alone in the big house across the street.  She liked having me around; she plied me with cookies, taught me things about the world, and tried to interest me in finger painting, in which she herself took great pleasure.  She would set up easels in her kitchen, tack enormous slick soaking papers to their frames, and paint undulating undersea scenes: horizontal smears of color sparked by occasional vertical streaks which were understood to be fixed kelp.  I liked her.  She meant no harm on earth, and yet half a year after her failed visit as Santa Claus, I ran from her again.

That day, a day of the following summer, Miss White and I knelt in her yard while she showed me a magnifying glass.  It was a large, strong hand lens.  She lifted my hand and, holding it very still, focused a dab of sunshine on my palm.  The glowing crescent wobbled, spread, and finally contracted to a point.  It burned; I was burned; I ripped my hand away and ran home crying.

Miss White called after me, sorry, explaining, but I didn’t look back.

Even now I wonder: if I meet God, will he take and hold my bare hand in his, and focus his eye on my palm, and kindle that spot and let me burn?

But no.  It is I who misunderstood everything and let everybody down.  Miss White, God, I am sorry I ran from you.  I am still running, running from that knowledge, that eye, that love from which there is no refuge.  For you meant only love, and love, and I felt only fear, and pain.  So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.

- – - – - – - -

As a follow-up, be sure to listen to eastmountainsouth’s “Still Running.”

Merry Christmas, friends.  May you all experience “that love from which there is no refuge.”

My cavities are spreading like kudzu in Alabama – this we’ve discussed.

Last week, I went back for round 2 with the dentist – a dentist, I might mention, whose last name rhymes with “feral.”  Actually, that’s how you pronounce it, too – “feral.”  Spelled a bit differently, but enough to put me on edge, right?

To her credit, this woman is wonderful, and lauded by D.D.S. folk nationwide.  Highly acclaimed.  Passionate about what she does, eager to always be learning more about her field, pushing back the horizons of dentistry one mouth at a time.  I trust her – maybe not with my life (after all, we just met), but definitely with my teeth.

Still though.  Feral.  Give this woman a drill, and BAM.  Terror, struck in my heart like a rattlesnake bite.

So when I climbed into The Chair last Thursday, I was already quaking in my cowgirl boots.  I hate hate hate a million times hate going to the dentist – especially when it involves cavities.

Be cool, I told myself.  It’s just the dentist.  People go every day.  You will live.

YOU WILL LIVE.  [James Earl Jones said that one.]

But as this woman drilled nothing short of a network of prairie dog tunnels in my molars, I was so stressed out that I couldn’t stop shaking.  My hands, my legs – everything was shaking.  When my teeth started chattering, she had to stop – and as soon as I realized that I was so out of control that the dentist could no longer do her job, I started to cry.

Tears.

Sneaking from the corners of my eyes, rolling out from behind the awesome dentist sunglasses and into my ears.

The assistant patted my shoulder, and then patted my head, and then began full on stroking my hair.  GAH!  How horrifying is it that I needed PHYSICAL REASSURANCE that I was okay – and it was pathetically obvious??

“Are you okay?” she gently asked.

“Yeah,” I sniffled.  “I’m a grown-ass lady.”

I told the dental assistant that I’m a grown-ass lady.  With tears running down my cheeks.

Then the dentist herself stepped in.  She spoke comforting, reassuring words, and then asked if I thought I could trust them.

It’s hard to trust someone who has the potential to hurt you.

But I think that’s the point, right?  Trust doesn’t mean a thing if the other person is completely safe.

It’s scary.  But it doesn’t mean that it’s not worth doing.

Without first being angry, you cannot forgive.
Without first being unsure, you cannot trust.
Without first being afraid, you cannot be brave.

If you find yourself in any of these less-than-desirable places today, you are really just on the verge of a beautiful opportunity.

A chance to forgive.  A chance to trust.  A chance to be brave.

A chance to trade up for something better.

Because after all, what’s so great about bitterness and fear?

Let’s be more interesting than that.

I’ve heard it said that to start anything requires a certain willing suspension of disbelief.  You have to allow yourself, on some level, to dare to hope – even in the face of potential disappointment or failure or heartbreak.

What a scary place to live.  There is no guaranteed win.  But thankfully, as a sweet friend recently reminded me, “winning” is not the point.

We might not be fearless, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t be brave.

I want a heart that’s rolled open like a welcome mat.  I’m working on it.

In my opinion, the world’s scariest creature is not a shark, or a bear, or even a naked mole rat.  The one beast that I never hope to meet in a dark alley is a moose.

Moose are some mean mother truckers.

Ever since I read “Hatchet,” and the kid was stranded alone in the Canadian wilderness, and the moose swam up in the lake UNDERNEATH HIM and gored him with his horns, I have been terrified.  This is unfortunate, because tomorrow, I will board a boat bound for the Last Frontier, where people see moose outside of the local Applebees.

But who knows – maybe moose will win me over.

Perhaps if Alison Krauss serenaded the encounter?

(Why does that make me want to laugh so hard?)

Speaking of savage behemoths, I just learned that the state marine animal of Alaska (every state should have one) is the bowhead whale.  This is by far the ugliest beast I have ever seen.

If I don’t return, you can either blame the state of Alaska for death-by-wildlife, or Christopher McCandless for the inspiration to just never come back.  At this point, it’s a toss up.

Before getting roommates this past December, I lived alone for 5 years.  I cannot remember a time that I was ever scared to live by myself.  But last night, I started to wonder… why?

I’m still house-sitting, and when it was close to midnight and I was in bed working on the computer, one of the dogs sat straight up and started growling.  He made his way to the doorway to the hall, and then started barking ferociously.

I knew that someone was in the house.

I knew that he was coming down the hall.

I knew that I should have made Charlton Heston my president.

I sat there frozen as Lucky the dog ran down the hall and out to the living room.  Then everything fell silent.

That’s when I got TERRIFIED.

Because I started hearing whispers – like the smoke monster from “Lost.”  So not only is there someone in the house, but he is a Jedi of canines, and is putting Lucky into a trance, and if he can do that to a yellow Lab, then what can he do to me?  I’m going to wind up with a tracking device injected into my neck, brainwashed, telling people that my name is Kiki Van Alsteen and assassinating foreign officials.

But instead of finding myself a weapon and going on a man-hunt, I told myself that I was crazy, and turned out the light.  And fell asleep completely petrified – like, blankets-pulled-up-to-my-chin, eyes-squeezed-shut, peeing-my-pants scared.

Can you say “avoidance”?

This morning, I forgot that I had to go to work.  I was in the middle of a dream that Taylor Swift was holding her CD release party at my old Music Row apartment, and thousands of people were lined up on the sidewalk outside my home (I was going to make them take off their shoes at the door).  My alarm kept going off, but I guess that I kept snoozing, because when the dream reached a crescendo and the other Annie had won a lunch at P.F. Changs with Taylor Swift herself, I was already a half an hour late for work.

But none of that is important.  Behold!  Today, I have a video.

Warning: I may have discovered sound effects.

I know.  Get excited.

Productivity and Boredom from Annie Parsons on Vimeo.

I would love to continue the conversation started yesterday, and unpack the question, “Why do some women have the expectation that men should be the initiators?” (I don’t use the word “pursue” – to me, it connotes primal images of a hunter, ear to the ground, tracking a herd of elk.) I would love to talk about any double-standards that brings up. I would love to tell you why I have made the decision to not ask guys out. I would love to explain that I am not a man-hater, man-basher, cynic, OR idealist.

But that post is for another day. Today, I bring to you another subject that I, um, don’t really expect men to resonate with, either…

Yesterday, I threw away my scale.

Just like that. Trashed. Into the dumpster.

I am a compulsive weight-checker, always keeping tabs on my poundage, and consequently tempted to feel either good or bad, happy or sad, proud or ashamed, jubilant or angry. It’s amazing how a great day can be ruined by a number – a NUMBER – like an ever-shifting scorecard for whatever level of healthful diligence I have demonstrated.

In the last few months, I’ve found myself increasingly frustrated at the number on the scale RISING – despite my ability to run further than I could ever run before, despite my capacity to carry on a conversation throughout a 60 minute jog, despite my clothes fitting the same, despite my energy and improved attitude. In the face of all of these accomplishments, the scale says that I weigh 10 lbs. more than I did before I started running last fall.

And for a girl who has been a dieter since age 11, this is traumatizing news.

Miranda has been telling me for years to just throw the damn thing out. She would get outwardly angry when she would see it in the corner of my bathroom, and, knowing the emotional stranglehold the scale has on me, would order me to get rid of it. But for me, to get rid of the scale would be to give up control – and then, maybe, to expand, expand, expand like bread dough.

At first, I thought that I would just take the scale and stash it beneath my bathroom sink – out of sight, out of mind, right? Wrong. For me, keeping my scale would be like staying friends with an ex-boyfriend on Facebook – an unhelpful temptation “just to check.” Sorry boys.

And sorry scale.

It’s time for a new chapter in my life – one in which I have no idea what I weigh.

Who knew that tossing out my scale would be one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever done?

This is what happens when an international financial firm goes down in flames:

The CPA with two small children and a blue-collar husband rushes out of the office, not returning for a half an hour. She wears sunglasses to hide the red eyes and the fear.

The executive assistants commiserate as the systems get shut down one by one. “We have no access to our accounts.” “I can’t get into my email.” “Why won’t this program open up?”

The unflappable, jovial advisor with the infectious laugh and generous spirit has a vacant look behind his eyes. He smiles, but only out of defeat.

When the temp-receptionist asks what she can do to help, she is met with a silent motion from her co-worker: pray.

All employees suddenly become equals. There are no titles – only the shared experience of crumbling stability.

The boss nervously jokes that he has dibs on the artwork on the walls. No one laughs.

All workers are warned to not answer the phones, and, under no circumstances, speak to the press. This is difficult when reporters plant themselves outside the office doors.

The partner from Memphis who frequents the office gives the temp-receptionist his business card, telling her that if they don’t see each other again, to please keep in touch.

No one is given any information. No one knows what is going on. No one has any idea what to expect, and wonders when the SEC will show up.

It feels like the Titanic sinking, and the members of the string quartet shaking hands and exchanging their final words before getting back to business, playing their songs until they are swallowed by the ocean and silenced.