40-day Bare Face: Day 6 - Outdoorsy?

Last night I met up with other people who had President’s Day off. They had spent the whole day hiking and eating and enjoying the beauty and adventure Marin has to offer. I told them they had a Teddy Roosevelt President’s day.

I met them for a bonfire out at Muir Beach, where we cooked Cajun sausage, made smores, and watched the moon come and go from view. Every now and then, the fog would part, revealing  the half-moon and star powder. That clear patch of sky would unfold out of the fog envelope, and as the fog came and went, we’d get the chance to read and re-read the exquisite letter of stars and moonlight. Moon-soaked waves spilled on the sand, and the bonfire tinted the sea-foam a shimmery gold as it landed. It was a great privilege to behold this kind of beauty—the kind that lays the soul bare.

I don’t love being outside, but it seems a crime to say that when nights like last night are in the mix.

At one point, a coal from the fire painfully flew in my face, which I went to brush away with sandy hands also sticky from the smores. I got the hot coal AND the sand in my eye, marshmallow on my face, and frustrated, in the midst of all that splendor, nearly snapped “This is why I don’t @*&#%$*@*&#* GO OUTSIDE!!!” By God’s grace, I was able to hold my tongue and not be too much of a jerk in my frustration.

As I was recovering from the earthy assault, I was suddenly grateful I didn’t also have to wonder if I had makeup everywhere. Someone handed me a bottle of water and I could rinse out my eye, letting the water stream down my face.  I didn’t have to worry that the renegade mascara and lipstick would make me look like my next question would be a hissing “Why So SeriouS?” It was freeing.

I started to think about my hostility toward the outdoors. It’s true I deeply despise the sensations of being cold, wet, and dirty. My hatred for those is ever present, trumping whatever beauty or experience is supposed to offset those. I assure you, there’s no way around it. I’ve always been this way. I simply won’t have my best time when those three are the conditions.

But there is plenty of being outside that doesn’t depend on being cold, wet, or dirty. I live in Northern California, where the weather is great and nothing in nature here, unlike Florida, is trying to kill you. Do I really have to hate being outside so much?

No. But I do have to confess that part of my resistance to the outdoors comes from not having my usual opportunities to prove myself with proficiency or appearance.

As a non-athletic asthmatic, I have never been able to hike as fast, climb as high, or endure as long as the people who did this stuff all the time. My daily life is slow, weak, and pretty low on oxygen as a rule. When my people do outdoorsy things, even if I attend, I fall behind and it’s a lonely, difficult experience. Usually, my proficiency in any other field reduces that burden. I can perform well enough on any indoor thing to earn my way out of the loneliness and difficulty. Not to mention, I can usually perform well enough to ensure my own safety.  

As a real girly girl, being outside renders some of my favorite things impractical or even detrimental. Last night, mascara and lipstick would have hindered a quick recovery from the ember episode. Hiking in high heels is suicidal. But even though being girly can be a celebration of color and beauty and design and care, it can also mean a sad preoccupation with material and physical comfort. In our quest for loveliness and caring for ourselves and people, we get lost in trying to control our circumstances. The outdoors far from affords anyone the chance to do that.

For someone like me, to love going outside means fully surrendering my performance self and my controlling self. It means putting my weakness on display for people.

Some of you hear me sputter vitriol at the thought of camping or hiking and you feel sad for me. As you should. You know what I’m missing out on when I insist on staying inside, and you feel the loss for me.

But we all  have a place where we rely on our own performance or ability to control our comfort in the familiar that keeps us from experiencing God’s extravagant Beauty and Joy.

This Lent for me has been about intentionally going to the place where the performance and control have to die. God has asked us all to do that. And because God is good, and He extravagantly loves us, we find the aching beauty of moonlight beach bonfires with loving family when we get there.

Around & about

It's president's day. And if you're one of those people (like me) stuck at work when the rest of your people are presidentially enjoying their day off, you might want for something to read.

If you are bumming around today, read these. It's a good way to spend some time off.

• It turns out the Vatican was also contemplating Amy Winehouse.
  
• Jason Morehead asks great questions about The Persecution Complex of the Modern Introvert.
  
• 10 Lists That Read Like Poems 
• I already have a psychotic compulsion for making lists. I now want to make a list in each category, especially one like Nora Ephron's and Isaac Newton's. Or I wonder if I'd get hired by making Da Vinci's list into a resume for myself.
  
• Then I also found Thelonius Monk's awesome list of advice, reminding me he was as much philosopher as he was musician. How to be cool and be good and all that jazz.
  
•  "The tremendous activity of a boy sitting still." The Fine Arts Museum of St. Petersburg, FL had a strong collection of Ashcan Art- paintings from early 20th cent. urban and immigrant life. I thought it was some of the best art I found in Florida.  These works are powerful and real. They make the Impressionists look like they drowned in their damned waterlily ponds. Read this great discussion of what they meant to America and art here.
• Excerpt: ""People's houses," Robert Henri wrote, "get to look like them. There is more in a house than the materials it is made of. Humanize the house." The Ashcan School painters took this very seriously, finding ways to humanize nearly everything. In George Luks' 1908 painting, “The Guitar (a Portrait of the Artist's Brother with His Son),” a guitar is shown to be a tool by which the father will teach the infant son how to become a man. The guitar is an outgrowth of the father's character as it is being imprinted on the baby boy."
  
• I am on the hunt for a used copy of Joan Didion's Slouching Toward Bethlehem. I keep seeing it quoted and used about life in California. I live in California. I love California.  I want to write like Joan Didion. So I must read this classic book. It also needs to be a real copy. It won't be as real as she is if I yank it out of an Amazon package and crack the spiffy new spine myself.. If you're browsing second hand shops, and you see one of these, pick it up for me. Until then, read this great interview with her from Believer Magazine.
  
• Have I mentioned lately that I love where I live? Look what's happening in a couple of weeks to the Bay Bridge--a bridge I try not to cross because it takes me to the wrong side of the bay (Oakland is NOT for me), but still!  How awesome will this be?
  
• Maybe I would have been more athletic if I had known Scientists suggest beer after a workout.
  
• Remember when I said that going to bars and seeing friends' bands was one of my favorite things to do? Some of those those guys from those bars in my twenties are still at it. Look. I even have a t-shirt with the lead singer on it.
  
• .Making Art With 60,000 Woven Coffee Stirrers What a glorious use for them! Hooray for physics and art!
  

40-Day Bare Face: Day 5 - Liturgy & Lipstick

Alarm. Why. so.early. Who do I need to kill for this?  What day is it?

Sunday. Church. What am I going to wear?

I should have set my clothes out last night.  

I need coffee before I can solve this problem.

I have that red sweater clean. We’ll go with that.

 Oooh. That red sweater means red lipstick.

Yesssss…I love Today, I just decided.

Ok. Hair. I like the buttons on the back of that sweater, so I should probably put it up.

Hmm. It’s still curly from last night. Ponytail with a red ribbon. And a braid in front. Done.

I love this ribbon.  I think it came on that Christmas present from Mom.

 Man. I want to make things beautiful like she always does.

Wow. You can tell I had a good time last night. Those are some DARK circles.

Don’t care. It was worth it. That was a good beer. And everyone knows I’ll lose sleep for conversation like that, no question.  That thing he said… I wonder if he meant…? I must remember to follow up with him about that thought…eh. I’m probably the only one who’s still caring about that point. Still…

Where is my MAC concealer? That’ll help. Man. I love this Laura Mericer powder. It sure evens things out. I hope it lasts through this crazy day.

This reminds me of that conversation I had with Cortney about blonds having blotchy skin. Go ahead and try, you olive-skinned, dark-featured people. You JUST TRY to understand what we blondes are dealing with here. Yeah. “Blondes have more fun”, but we have to work a little harder to make sure last night's "fun" doesn’t show the next day.

There. That’s nice and even.

Even, but pale. Now some blush so I don’t look dead.

Ok, if I’m doing red lipstick, and this is church, minimal eyes.

 Don’t kid yourself. You don’t even know what “minimal” means. It’s all you can do to neglect those false eyelashes over there.

True. But I do NOT need false eyelashes for a Sunday. Technically, I don’t need them ever. #firstworldproblems and all that.

Besides, this is great mascara. I am glad the Sephora girl pointed it out.

Yikes. I look like a Kewpie Doll. Where is that lash comb? Ooh. I bet this other mascara will make them longer. And one more coat for good measure.

Eyeliner. Today? Like the Pan Am girls. Those are such cool cat eyes. I was born in the wrong era. Whoops. Too much. Fix that. We’re not going for Amy Winehouse, here. 

This MAC gel liner looks like a pot of fountain pen ink. I love that I get to put it on my face. Maybe that was Amy Winehouse’s problem. She liked the feel of gel liner, too.

No. That was NOT Amy Winehouse’s problem. She had bigger ones. She really needed Jesus. And less drugs. No drugs. She needed NO drugs. And real mercy for all that pain. Lord, I don’t know of  any, but I know there are people in Your church today with hearts that hurt like hers. Please have mercy on them. Bring them comfort and freedom. Show me how I can help.

Where is my eyeliner brush?  I have GOT to clean out this bag. I don’t need all this stuff.

I don’t need all this stuff. Now I sound like Lindsay.

But I DO need this new Urban Decay Shadow! I forgot I had that!

I can’t believe I’m donning an eye shadow called “Sin” for a Sunday Morning. I’m probably going to hell for that. Oh great. My other one is called “Midnight Cowboy Rides Again.”  If I don’t tell people that, no one will ask what he was riding… They might ask, though, why I have glitter on my face. Don’t care. This eyeshadow is pretty and I can wear what I want. But “Midnight Cowboy…” to church??

Ok. This is funny but it’s also Sunday morning. I need to get my head in the game.

God, grant me the ability to see Your people with Your eyes, this morning. Holy Spirit, please begin now bringing me present with Your Presence and the Father’s people.

Where's my...?  That’s right. I left my lipstick in my Kate Spade bag from last night. I think I’ll just keep using this bag today. It goes with my sweater.

It’s a good weekend when I get two days in Dior Red lipstick AND my Kate Spade bag. Remember Lord? Remember when you gave me this bag? And my lipstick was a gift from mom, too—or, YOU, rather, but through Mom. Thank you for blessing me with such vibrant beauty I can carry and wear. It's hard to forget you love me with these.

Oh! I can also wear my Kate Spade London Calling Bracelet from Beth! I LOVE that bracelet.  God, bless Beth and Ben today. Bless them the way they have blessed me.

Lipstick. I came out of the bathroom for my lipstick. Ooh. There’s a little coffee left. Ok. Finish coffee. Brush Teeth. THEN Lipstick.

Where’s my watch? Bathroom Counter. Damn. Is it really that late? 

Guess I’ll do my lipstick in the car. 

40-day Bare Face: Day 4 - Reflected

I have to go meet a friend in 25 minutes. I showered this morning, but as I'm finishing my coffee I remember I "still haven't put my makeup on." At the 25 minute mark, it's time to put on my face, find my shoes, put my purse together and make my feeble attempt to get out the door on time.

But, in fact,  I already have my "face" on. And this isn't the first time in the last couple days where a bare face has wrenched my attention toward all of my routines. Toward how I move, when, and why.

Saturdays are the day when a bare face (or something close to it) is most likely to make an appearance.  If I rest, it's on a Saturday and part of that is a low-key wardrobe. It's not uncommon for 3pm to roll around and I still have to "get ready", where I'll put on a makeup look that goes with the jeans, sneakers, and sweater I'm wearing.

IF I rest, it's on a Saturday.

I know enough to realize the problem with that sentence. As Christians, or even just healthy people, we are supposed to abide by God's command to rest, and that's one I usually side-step. In fact, I actively work to disobey that one. I fill my day and week to the brim with many good and wonderful things.

And then I try to stop doing that, and I hate it.  I try to stop doing and try this thing called "resting." At first, I find the downtime as jarring as my reflection when I catch it these days. My whole being revolts against the boredom, loneliness, and stillness of the downtime.

Here is where I'm not going to pretend I'm any holier or farther along on my path. I'm not going to try to tell you I feel liberated by the lenten experiment I'm doing. It would be lying to claim that getting ready to leave is sooo much better without my mascara and lipstick. I really doubt I'll ever be able to say that. I love being a girly girl, and deeply believe mascara and (especially red) lipstick make life more lovely.

But I need the downtime. Desperately. I need to restore order to my space, laundry, head, and heart. I need that as much as I need to understand that the colorful face is not entirely who I am. That Joy and Beauty can be found without what I usually use find them.

What I need on this Saturday is the courage to enter into the discomfort. To not run from the thoughts and feelings that surface when I behold my true reflection. A bare face allows me to get used to my true reflection. But a bare day? That is my only opportunity to behold the true condition of my heart and life and time, and I have to keep my gaze on that reflection no matter how foreign it is or how little I like what I see.

40-day Bare Face: Day 3 - Alive

Confession: I love when I woke up today I could still smell the cigarettes from last night. And that my ears were still ringing--which is probably because I had ended the assault on them only 5 or so hours before I tried waking up. These are signs of a good night.

Last night, after some traditional birthday festivities, we went to do one of my all-time favorite things: go see a friend's band in a bar. Actually the band featured a friend of a friend. But it doesn't matter when drums pound my own heartbeat into submission and the guitarist can't decide if he's playing for Stevie Wonder or Pearl Jam. I'm a happy girl when there's live music (and it's at least decent).

I can't imagine my people in California have had the chance to grasp how much I love live music. My best friend Cassie from college would get it, having pulled me off a band's tour bus. My Florida people (especially him and her) would get it, having traipsed to The Social   or more shamefully, The Back Booth  than two dozen times during my term at the boarding school. I always said that of the very few things I'd miss about Orlando when I left, The Social would be at the top of the list. I haven't been to anywhere even remotely like these places since I moved here.

Last night, at Peri's in Fairfax, I found one. I walked in. When the air of cigarettes and hoppy beer smacked me senseless--when the guitars made me feel like I was on the last lap of the Jericho parade, I knew I was home.

I get so much pleasure from the work and craft of musicians, it feels like I'm stealing. I do absolutely nothing to earn that joy and delight. Music transforms my mind and heart the way reading does. Only with music--especially, live, loud music--there is greater immediacy because that very note is only played once in that very moment, and then it is gone. It's over. Live music- musicians at work--to quote Holden Caulfield, really knocks me out.

There was a different kind of knocked out I felt when I had to face the morning. Ugh.  But I got extra sleep because with a bare face, there are many fewer steps between my empty coffee cup and the door. The trouble is, I'm also missing the cosmetic help to hid the telltale signs of a good night. But I assure you: I feel way more alive than I look.

In the spirit of feeling alive, I'm headed into The City tonight on an ennui-busting expedition to Four Barrel, Humphrey Slocombe, and Phoenix books. My Florida friends are also no strangers to my Friday Night Ennui. And while I might be a stranger to the bare face, I've found that it blends in best with the hipsters on Valencia St.

40-Day Bare Face: Day 2 - Shorn

Happy Valentine's Day.

The visceral response to this holiday really struck me today. I work in an office where I saw--all before lunch-- the full spectrum of all this holiday has to offer:  from a love note delivered every hour on the hour and carefully arranged on (his) desk or florist delivery vans out my window, to the people wearing black making snarky comments about commercialism and feigning to mask envy and resentment with irony and coolness. The magnitude of these responses to a fairly ordinary day betrays there's more going on in our hearts than most of us are willing to admit.

I am having my own response to Valentine's day. First, it's my parents' anniversary. I don't care who you are, it's a big deal when marriages last that long. Second, a couple friends have their birthdays today, one of whom we bullied against his will into celebrating--a kind of thing that warranted a real plan.  Birthdays are a big deal to me, and woe is the holiday that tries to win out over one. Hands down, birthdays take the cake.

Let the record show I actually like Valentine's day. I always have. It would be hard for me NOT to love a day devoted to celebration, appreciation, affection, mail, stationery, chocolate, flowers, and the color red. I consider it National Red Lipstick Day.

(Pictured is the best red lipstick of all time. It's Rouge Dior Rouge Favori from Nordstroms. If I had my way, I'd wear it every day for the rest of my life and then be buried in it. Note: If I look great--and more important, thrilled to be alive--I am most surely wearing this.)

Today, though, is Day 2 of the 40-Day Bare Face. My lenten fast rules out wearing my favorite way to mark the day I like with what I love. I feel like I lost something--like something was taken from me and now I'm noticeable and exposed. One might think that the red lipstick would make a woman noticeable and exposed, and it does, but this is not that kind.

Noticeable and exposed--bereft.

I feel shorn.

I came across a French proverb that translates, "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb".

And today seems to be a windy one for the shorn.

Sometimes our comfort isn't in stilling the wind. Sometimes it's in  trusting that even that which cuts cruelly is only a cool breeze--one that's already been tempered by the Good Shepherd.

40-day Bare Face : Day 1 - Fragile

I am undertaking the most intensive lenten fast I've ever done. I am abstaining from a few things, stepping away from a ministry that has defined my days for the last two years, but most obviously, I'm committed to no makeup for the season. There are a couple feast-day exceptions, but today I began the longest time without my lovely mask since I was 13 yrs old. I feel fragile and transparent. I feel like I can't see clearly (or be seen clearly) without my mascara.

But all I want to see is Jesus. I want to see His face when I catch my reflection in the mirror, and hear His voice answer the question, "Am I enough?".

The next few steps on the path of obedience for me are excruciating ones. But I take them with hope that there is beauty beyond them and with faith that this path leads to freedom. Two things today lent language to my head and heart.

First,

" Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."  (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

And second, this excerpt from Ch. 7: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, in the Narnia series. This is where Eustace recounts how he went from having been stranded in a greedy dragon's body to his new self in new clothes: 

"I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected:
a huge lion coming slowly toward me.
And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night,
but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer.
I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon,
I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn't that kind of fear.
I wasn't afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it -- if you can understand.
Well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes.
And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it."

"You mean it spoke?"

"I don't know. Now that you mention it, I don't think it did.
But it told me all the same. And I knew I'd have to do what it told me,
so I got up and followed it. And it led me a long way into the mountains.
And there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went.
So at last when we came to the top of a mountain I'd never seen before and
on the top of this mountain there was a garden -
trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well. . . .

"Then the lion said -- but I don't know if it spoke --
'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws,
I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now.
So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

"The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart.
And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt.
The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of
feeling the stuff peel off. You know -- if you've ever picked the scab
off a sore place. It hurts like billy -- oh but it is such fun to see it coming away."

"I know exactly what you mean," said Edmund.

"Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off -- just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt -- and there it was lying on the grass:
only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobly-looking than the others had been.
And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been.
Then he caught hold of me -- I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath
now that I'd no skin on -- and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything
but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I
started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm.
And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again.

...I think you saw Aslan," Edmund said"