O Christmas tree, how lovely are your branches?

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

This is a double cheap shot–a no longer seasonally-appropriate story copied from an email. But I’ve brought this tale up in conversation even as Christmas fades in the rear view mirror. It’s too fun–and too illustrative of what happens when you put me and Jamie together–to keep from you.

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My friend Jamie was going to get her Christmas tree several days ago, but another friend pointed out that she probably couldn’t carry it up three very steep flights of stairs by herself. So while we were at (yet another) Christmas party yesterday, Jamie asked if I would help her. Being the loyal, kind-hearted, good person I am, I said yes.
 
(She also agreed to buy me coffee in exchange for my services.)
 
So we run back to her apartment and she gives me a coat to wear over my outfit, because I was dressed up. I also borrowed a pair of flops because I was wearing four inch heels, which are not good for carrying trees up stairs. At this point I look like a hobo. And we’re off to buy a tree!
 
At some point in this process, I realize that we are buying a tree and transporting it in a convertible. Awesome.
 
We went to Lowe’s and quickly began lifting trees and evaluating their attributes. An employee said, “You know I can pick those up for you,” apparently amused by the site of two very enthusiastic, tiny women lifting six to seven foot trees. (They’re not heavy!) So he picked up trees and tried not to roll his eyes at our proclamations. “He’s so cute!” “Oh, he’s so short and fat!” “Look at him! He’s so tall and thin and elegant!”
 
(“Is this how you pick out men?” the guy asked us.)
 
After settling on a tree, Jamie convinced the guy to go ahead and put the tree on a stand for her, so she wouldn’t have to struggle with it when she returned home. This took probably another 20 minutes, and while we waited we continued a commentary on every other tree that was walked past us. (“Oh, he’s cute too! But yours is so much cuter.”) (The latter was, of course, uttered in a hushed voice so as not to upset the other tree’s purchaser.)
 
At last, we pay and are told to bring the car around so they can load the tree for us. We plotted taking back roads back to her house–we certainly weren’t going to drive on I-65 with a tree in the back seat! Surprisingly, the Lowe’s employees were undaunted when we pulled up in a convertible. “We loaded a red one earlier!”
 
So they pulled out a sheet of plastic, laid it in the backseat, and then gently (lovingly) eased the tree in. (We did not buckle it up.) They then tied the plastic around it so that her car wouldn’t be covered with pine needles and so the plastic wouldn’t flap in the wind too much as we drove back to the Southside.
 
Do you know how hard it is to check blind spots with a tree in your back seat?
 
We stopped at my coffee shop to pick up my reward coffee and ran into a friend of Jamie’s from undergrad. (I knew we would see someone we knew with my get-up being what it was.) Hooray! We told him what we were up to, and bingo! We have man-help to escort the tree up the stairs. 
 
He effortlessly carried the tree, all by himself, up to Jamie’s attic-level apartment. And our adventure was a success.
 
Plus, I got coffee.

Let go of the worry, there’s so much nobody understands

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

“We are all shipwrecked. All castaways… One day we all wake on the beach, our heads caked with sand, sea-foam stinging our eyes, fiddler crabs picking at our roses and the taste of salt caked on our lips. … And, like it or not, it is there that we realize we are all in need of Friday to come rescue us off this island, because we don’t speak the language and we can’t read the messages in the bottle.” –Charles Martin, When Crickets Cry

Something I read this afternoon reminded me of this quote. Although my mom loved this book, I was really dissatisfied with it… all of it, but this one passage. Something about this paragraph resonates…

Now, I’m going to listen to some Ryan Adams.

A heart divided

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

Some of the best things come at the end of September.

Two years ago, that was my favorite football team triumphing over my next-to-least favorite team. I was in Bryant-Denny Stadium on Oct. 1, 2005, when Alabama defeated Florida, 31-3. I joined in proudly as members of the student section began the tomahawk chop. A girl nearby asked, “Why are we doing this? We’re not Seminoles!” A friend of mine replied (with pride), “Some of us are.”

Florida is the foe of my other favorite team, Florida State. In four years of picking college football games, I always pick according to loyalty. I think it’s morally wrong to derive some benefit from your team’s loss. That’s why in four years of competing in my college football pick ’em, I have yet to pick against either Alabama or Florida State. Until this week, that philosophy has served me well.

Today, that all changes.

My two alma maters meet tonight for their first contest in 33 years–and they’re doing it in my hometown. When the game was announced two years ago, my first thought was that I HAD to find tickets. My second was that I had to choose sides.

It’s a lose/lose or win/win situation, depending on your outlook. I could easily cheer for my undergrad team. Some people think that’s the only way to go! That was the school where I grew up, where I met some of my very closest friends, where I once danced on the 50 yard line. On my first visit to Florida State, back in 1993, I was impressed by the campus bowling alley and the fact that I could buy a Seminole keychain with my name on it. When I enrolled six years later, the campus captured my heart.

But my heart wasn’t free for the taking. I had promised it to Alabama football before I even knew what a first down was. I grew up wearing crimson. After Florida-Alabama games, we would run to the front yard and yell “Roooooooooooooooll tide! Roll!” in our loudest voices, taunting our neighbors with their Gator flag. When my dad began explaining the concept of first and 10, I was hooked. I remember watching a game while my sisters were supposed to be upstairs cleaning. “Why doesn’t she have to help?” they whined. “Because she’s watching football with me.”

On one level, my heart breaks at having to choose one team over another. But in truth, I’ve had my No. 1 team all along. You can’t turn your back on your roots, on your family, on a way of life you’ve known longer than memory serves. Which is why tonight, I’ll stand proudly in my crimson and white, screaming loudly for the Tide.

“There are two major theories of fandom, as far as I can tell: the Childhood Theory and the Undergrad Theory. Some people would argue that you lock yourself into a team for life when you decide to go to school there, no matter who you liked before.

“But these people also wouldn’t understand why a child who was not quite 8 could learn the meaning of despondence by watching an undefeated football team lose to its rival, or why, even decades later, you would still get a chill up your spine every time you see Jay Barker lead a comeback against Georgia, or why watching George Teague strip the ball from a Miami wide receiver still ranks among the Top 5 best moments in life.

“The Undergrad Theorists surely are good people, and no doubt they mean well. But they don’t understand football, because they don’t understand Alabama football.“Roll Damn Tide.”

–My friend Chris, in an e-mail to me, after I sent him my picks for the week

Soon this will change just like the seasons

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

I know become especially obnoxious as July approaches each year. But birthdays are a big deal to me. My first memory is of my fourth birthday (when my parents gave me the Care Bear movie stoundtrack). I remember planning my birthday parties in elementary school so the maximum number of friends would be able to attend. (Anyone whose birthday falls near or on a holiday can relate to that, I’m sure.) As I drove across town this week, I got to thinking about my favorite birthdays. I’ll just share two, both from recent years.

I celebrated my 23rd birthday with 45 people I’d known for only four weeks, plus my best friend who was briefly visitng the town I worked in that summer. Because no one knew me all that well at that point, I organized my own small birthday shindig. Probably 15 or 20 people came to a cook out by my apartment, and my sweet roommates gave me a jewelry box I still use and cards I’ve still saved.

A canoe trip I’d planned for after the cook out fell through. Instead I played volleyball, went swimming and got ice cream with a smaller group (which is generally my preference anyway). We were laid-back, without the noise of a large crowd or the stress of detailed plans. We simply enjoyed each other, and that’s one of the best gifts I could receive.

Last year was, unexpectedly, one of my favorite birthdays. I had been “dumped” (for lack of a more specific descriptor) a week before, and my original plan had been to spend the weekend in Florida with him.

Instead, I spent the night of my birthday at a concert where the singer dedicated the best song to me. (“I’m the icing on the cake/I’m the secret ingredient you’re missing”) My sister and several of my girl friends rallied around me.

Since my weekend plans had been destroyed, one of my best guy friends insisted on arranging a small gathering instead. Without me even needing to ask if she would come, a new girl friend insisted on driving an hour to join in (even though she had already celebrated my birthday once). We went with a handful of friends to dinner and out for a drink afterward. It was a low-key birthday, and one of few times I felt that someone cared enough and got me enough to make me feel cared for on my birthday.

Here’s to another year (and to one that doesn’t utilize a song about a break up for as its theme!).

There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I don’t know how

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

On an ordinary day, I’m the friendliest person on the city streets. I smile at everyone and frequently say hello, even to people who scare me a little bit. (Perhaps especially to people who scare me.)

But some days I prefer isolation. Today is one of those days.

You never really know what’s going on inside someone. I feel like I’m shaking, though not visibly, from my hands to my intestines. After a quick lunch in the break room, I turned on my iPod and left for a walk through downtown. With Ryan Adams surrounding me aurally, I somehow feel it’s acceptable to stare at the ground instead of at the city moving around me.

I walked through the park, past the art museum and back to the library, where I feel safe in my anonymity. I don’t need any more books—Lord knows my to read list is long enough already, and I actually have a day-past-due book laying on my car’s passenger seat right now. But whether I’m sitting at this table with a yellow legal pad and pen or I’m hiding among the books, inhaling scents from their borrowed homes, here I can be ignored.

Sometimes, that’s exactly what I want.

There’s nothing you can do or say

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

2007 is going to be different. I know that’s easy to say, but that’s what I’ve decided. It’s going to be different. It needs to be different.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately (but today in particular) about how what you think you want isn’t always what you want – or even what you think it is. It’s easy to say that out loud. (Or, OK, it’s not. But it’s possible.) But it’s a lot harder to accept it and move on.

That’s where we’re at. And I do mean we. It’s not easy, it’s not what you want to hear. But it’s right. And it’s best. And we’re in this together.

The dreams that you dare to dream really do come true

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

I was waving my shaker in time with the cheers and music, but yesterday my mind wandered from football to depth in friendships. I stood watching the most important game of the year (to me) but I was thinking of how there’s something more.

Two days ago I had one of those lunches that you leave feeling rejuvenated. A friend and I caught up on the latest in each other’s lives, which is important, and we talked about football, which is important to me. But we also talked about faith and feminism and struggles and how we don’t have everything figured out.

I left feeling that more than just my physical hunger had been met.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my relationships with other people. My very closest friends live miles away, and my friendships in town don’t yet go as deep. That means it’s easy to let things that matter go unnoticed or undiscussed, whether it’s a matter of faith or my own insecurities (or more likely, both).

But I’m feeling more optimistic than I have in a while, about relationships, football and life in general. It’s been years since I’ve stayed in one place longer than 12 months, but I think I’m there now. That eliminates a major barrier to being real, to allowing myself to feel comfortable. (I’m slow to commit, but once I do, I’m sold. That’s true for shoes and people.)

On this lazy Sunday morning, I feel good about life.

–Nov. 19, 2006, 10:40 a.m.

On a pillow of blue bonnets and a blanket made of stars

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

Take me out on a Friday night. I’ll give my hair an extra 30 seconds of attention and wear a little more eye make-up. We’ll sparkle, shine and socialize.

Then we’ll spend Saturday on the couch, you in a ball cap and me in a ponytail, screaming at the TV. We’ll eat pizza and drink beer, and at the day’s end rattle off the day’s results and their significance.

I’m your typical girl-next-door, that’s all. I’m not the most driven, but I am the most loyal. I have faith but must stand on grace to survive.

I need my down time. I have to be alone, even if only to scribble non-sensical words. (It’s a life line.) I need girls’ nights out – or in – with discussion of our new outfits or new boys mingled with the things that really matter.

I am just me – nothing more or less, although I may try.

This routine is nice and clean, from dawn to dusk

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

What’s important to me?
paying my bills. Jesus. Real relationships with people – people who know me and call me out on sin, and people with whom I can do the same. Learning to expend energy for someone else’s good. Family. Sitting outside on sunny, cool days. Coffee (although I can learn to like decaf). Writing. Music. Correct punctuation. Reading. Setting an example for my sisters, brother and cousin. Learning to take care of myself. Having time to sit without feeling that I’ve got to rush to my next appointment. Church. Growing in my relationship with Jesus and as a person. College football.

What do I feel is getting in the way of those things?
Working part-time. Not having a regular schedule. Distance. My own attitude. Laziness. Uncertainty about my career goals. Fear, both of change and of money. Anxiety. Not being open with people. Not having time to be open with people. Turning to other things for comfort and guidance. Not taking life slowly enough to appreciate it.

The big question: What can I do about it?
(This might take a little longer to answer. But to start … ) Pray. Prioritize. Work full-time. Stop carelessly spending money. Develop my own schedule, at least as far as sleep is concerned. Spend less time on the Internet. Take at least one night a week for myself. Reread “Changes That Heal.” Pray about my career goals. Invest in my friendships.

“Where am I today? I wish that I knew
‘Cause looking around, there’s no sign of you
I don’t remember one jump or one leap
Just quiet steps away from your lead”
-Sean Watkins, “Reasons Why”

I miss those days, they won’t be coming back again

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

I’ve had a busier-than-usual social schedule here lately. (I’ve actually started joking that I need fewer friends!) But in the midst of the parties, football games and meals out, you know what I would really rather be doing?

Playing a board game.

A friend asked last year what I wanted to do for my 24th birthday, and that was my response. She laughed and said that was lame. I ended up spending that birthday watching TV alone on my couch.

Maybe it is lame. But playing those games is one of my favorite memories from college. It seems like life was simpler then. We’d gather around my dining room table, consuming way too much coffee and popcorn, and play Clue, or a card game, but almost always Clue. (I love Clue.)

Those nights weren’t really about playing the game, although everyone knows I love figuring out who dunnit. I think it was more about friendship, and enjoying each other while listening to good music, and living in a circle of friends.