Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed

by Glennon Melton

  Be confident because you are a child of God. Be humble because everyone else is too.

  Closer to Fine

  Lately I’ve been exploring the disciplines that help me fill up and remain calm. Most of these techniques are proactive things I do before I am upset to remind myself that the world and I are all right. These things are good, and they help me maintain a peaceful heart to some extent. But I live with three small children, and I am convinced that they meet early in the morning to plan the most effective way to take me down. So the fact is that my peace is not going to be consistently maintained, no matter how much reading, writing, praying, or yoga I do. Because there are very strong-willed forces working against me.

  Allow me to offer a specific example. The other night at dinner, Craig and I demanded that the kids clean their plates even though dinner was, admittedly, gross. One nanosecond before this suggestion was made, we were laughing, talking about Daddy’s day at work, planning our upcoming weekend, and generally feeling like a lovely, well-adjusted family. Then—ambushed by ourselves again—there was crying, screaming, heads banging on tables. Immediate anarchy. Instant chaos.

  I know that there are mothers who can roll with these scenarios. When kids tantrum, their facial expressions don’t change. Their weary smiles suggest: “Oh, well, kids will be kids,” and they calmly do whatever needs to be done to diffuse the situation. This approach is not my first instinct. My first instinct is to freak out. My first instinct is to remember that yes, this chaos is proof that I have ruined my life and the lives of everyone in my home and that we are a disaster of a family and that no mother, in the entire history of mothers, has ever been forced to endure the drama, decibels, and general suffering of this moment. My instinct is to tear my clothes and throw myself on the floor and bawl and cry out worthless declarations like, “I can’t TAKE this anymore!” My first instinct is to allow my anxiety and angst to pour out like gasoline on a raging fire and indulge in a full-on mommy meltdown.

  This, Craig suggests, is not helpful.

  So after a few years of parenting, it became clear that I needed a strategy to help me regain my peace after I had already lost it. Because I am going to lose it—frequently.

  Enter Joan Didion. Ms. Didion is a serious writer. Every word she chooses is precise and perfect. In an essay called “Self-Respect,” Ms. Didion offers the only strategy that has ever consistently helped me regain my mommy peace once I’ve lost it:

  It was once suggested to me that as an antidote to crying, I put my head in a paper bag. As it happens, there is a sound physiological reason, something to do with oxygen, for doing exactly that, but the psychological effect alone is incalculable. It is difficult in the extreme to continue fancying oneself Cathy in Wuthering Heights with one’s head in a food fair bag. There is a similar case for all the small disciplines, unimportant in themselves; imagine maintaining any sort of swoon, commiserate or carnal, in a cold shower.

  Yes, Ms. Didion, yes. It’s the little things. It’s the little disciplines that help us get through the day and regain peace. It’s not necessarily a different career or parenting philosophy or neighborhood or husband that we need. Sometimes it’s a deep breath, a glass of water, or a paper bag.

  I now store paper bag hats on all three floors of my house. When my children start losing their minds, I put on my bag and breathe and hide. Tah-dah! Instant quiet time, oxygen, and a reminder that things are not necessarily as dramatic and horrible as my kids or jumpy head might suggest.

  I draw smiley faces on my bags because I know that a large portion of my kids’ mommy memories will include these bags, and I’d like them to be smiley memories. Also, I love how the smiley face makes me look content, even though inside I am scowling and hyperventilating and ruing the day I was born. I think the thumbs-up gesture really completes the effect. One piece of advice: if you decide to employ this strategy in your home, don’t be tempted to cut out eye holes. I tried it once, and it ruins everything, because, well, eye holes mean you can still see the carnage, and the carnage can see your maniacal eyes.

  No eye holes.

  It’s helpful to adopt “small disciplines” to remind one’s self that life is much too important to be taken seriously.

  HOLDING ON

  On Crying and Pedaling

  For Robert

  I think what we’re supposed to do down here is bring heaven to earth, and I saw that happen once. I experienced heaven on earth.

  Years ago I participated in the AIDS ride as a fundraiser for AIDS research. Thousands of people raised money by pledging to ride their bicycles 280 miles from North Carolina to Washington, D.C. I was one of these thousands of people.

  I was not the most likely candidate because I’d never done anything for charity, ever. Unless you count my spring break trip to an Indian reservation, but that was mostly to score peyote. Decreasing my candidacy further was my absolute hatred of physically hard things.

  For example, trying to unlock a door that won’t unlock has been known to leave me on my front step in a puddle of tears. God, I hate that. The finding of the keys in my purse, the identifying of the correct key on the ring, the continuous turning of the key, the trying of the other keys, the dropping and retrieving of the keys, the juggling of bags and the whining kids and the sweat. Life is so hard.

  When Chase was eight, he started asking about “bad words.” We decided to teach him all of them so they’d lose their allure, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the F word out loud. Chase said, “It’s okay. I think I know that one. It’s the one you say when you can’t get the door open, right?” Yes. That one, I said. Don’t say that one.

  Still, I agreed to do the AIDS ride. I’m not really sure why. I think I just wanted to be the sort of person who did those sorts of things. I think it’s nice that God makes things magical even when we do them for lame reasons.

  Most of the AIDS ride was hellish. Partly because I hadn’t even sat on a bike since I was seven. I didn’t even have a bike. Every time Dana asked me to train with her, I’d remain on the couch, close my eyes, and tell her I was training through “visualization.” And although I did quit smoking and drinking as part of my preparation, I didn’t officially start quitting until 2:00 a.m. on race day. This quitting method was less helpful than my drinking buddies had promised it would be.

  Also, we rode our bikes one hundred miles a day in ninety-five degree heat. Our bottoms were so blistered and chapped that hourly we had to apply a product I’d have preferred never to discover called Butt Paste. At the end of each godforsaken day we rolled into “camp” and peeled off our soaking bike shorts to shower alongside other riders in a TRUCK. Honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever even ridden in a truck. Then we had to go to sleep in a field. It was like Woodstock with no music or drugs. Just pain. And there were terrifying Wizard of Oz–like storms at night and our tents leaked. So we lay in our own personal freezing ponds all night until we heard the fire alarm indicating it was time to ride again. Then we stood up and put helmets on our soaking heads and put our blistered, red, screaming butts back on our bike seats. I spent most of each day pedaling and crying. Crying and pedaling.

  I wasn’t the only one crying. I might have been the only one crying because of severe alcohol and nicotine withdrawal, but there were lots of tears. Tears from the sun’s brutality and from witnessing the relentless resolve of other riders. Tears from passing families on the side of the road blowing bubbles and whistles and holding posters that said: “YOU ARE A HERO.” That’ll tear you up. It tore everybody up. You can’t be called a hero when you’re at your absolute weakest and not cry. You just can’t. So you just cry and pedal.

  Dana, Christy, and I lived together at the time, and Christy thought that we were nuts to be doing this AIDS ride. She was mostly annoyed because it cut so deeply into our trio’s nightly wine and Jeopardy! ritual. Christy wasn’t used to four days without us, so she drove to North Carolina and brought cookies to our camp site. Then she left and slept at
a nice hotel. I begged her to take me along but she said absolutely not and promised that one day I’d thank her. It’s been more than a decade since the ride, and I still haven’t felt like thanking her. The next morning Christy found us again and drove beside Dana and me for half the day at two miles per hour, top down, smoking cigarettes and blasting “Eye of the Tiger” and “Livin’ on a Prayer.” Waving other cars around her for hours. Flipping them the bird when they honked at her. That’s a friend.

  There were rest stops along the way. Every few hours we’d pull over and find huge tents set up with volunteer medics scurrying around to bandage wounds, oxygenate wheezers, and take the sick to the hospital. I used these rests to inhale Power Bars, cry more, and pop zits. Sweating constantly causes acne, and this was distressing because there was a cute boy rider who was checking me out. So I kept a mini-mirror inside my bike pants even though it was extremely uncomfortable, and as soon as I hit each rest stop, I whipped it out and popped zits before the cute boy found me. Dana watched this routine in disgust. She’d gasp for air and pour bottled waters over her head and say: “Look at you. We’re DYING and YOU’RE PRIMPING.” And I’d say, “Well, THERE IS NO NEED TO DIE COVERED IN WHITEHEADS NOW, IS THERE? ” Got myself a post-ride date too. Yes. I did. Got me some digits on the AIDS ride.

  Still. There were stretches that went on for hours. Just hours and hours of nothing but scorching sun and pain and regret, and all you could think about was taking back your decision to do this crazy thing. And then, in the midst of utter despair, you’d see a mountain. A mountain would appear on the horizon like a sick joke. Over and over. Mountain after mountain. Just when you’d think, we have to be done. There can’t be another one. There’d be another one. And I’d get so angry. SO ANGRY. WTF God??? Really, another freaking mountain now? Now when things are already SO DAMN BAD? Now, WHEN WE’RE TRYING TO DO SOMETHING NICE AND GOOD?

  The problem was that there was no quitting. Even quitters like me couldn’t quit. Nobody said it; we all just knew. Even so, I’d also know that I just couldn’t take this next mountain. I just couldn’t. My soul was willing, but my body was close to dead. So I approached one of the mountains, already defeated. And a thin, gray-skinned, baldish man on his own bike rode up beside me. The man had hollow cheeks and eyes that were set too far back, like caves. His leg muscles looked painted on. Just muscle and bone. So skinny and small, like a jockey with a vicious flu. I made confused eye contact with the grayish man and he put his hand on my back. He read my pain and said, “Just rest, I’ll push you.” And I cried and rested my legs and let myself be carried. I didn’t understand how he was doing it, how he was pushing me up that hill, riding his bike and my bike, one hand on his handlebars and one hand on my back. But slowly, together, we made it to the top. And I squeaked out a thank-you, and he looked right at me with his cavey eyes and said: thank YOU. Then he turned away from me and rode back down the hill to carry another rider who couldn’t carry himself. And I turned back to watch him go and saw that there were at least twenty of these angels—twenty men with hands on the backs of other women, other men twice their size, pushing them forward and upward. They stayed at the bottoms of the biggest mountains along the route, the mountains they knew we’d never climb on our own, and they carried us. One at a time. Then back down for another, and another, and another. ’Til we were all on the other side of the mountain, together.

  I later learned that they were called the AIDS angels. They were so sick. Many were dying of AIDS. But they were at every AIDS ride nationwide. Waiting to help the healthy riders over mountains.

  Do you see? They were dying. But they were the strongest ones. The weak will be the strong. I still don’t understand it. But when those men carried me to the tops of those mountains, I felt heaven.

  When we arrived in D.C., to our finish line, I felt heaven again. There were thousands of us and thousands of them. The streets of D.C. were lined—ten, twelve, twenty people deep, cheering and screaming and crying, and the sound of the joy was deafening. It all became white noise, so through my tears I just watched them, because I couldn’t hear them anymore. They showed up for us because we’d shown up for love. Because we’d done something really, really hard, and they wanted to say thank-you, and be a part of it all. I saw my friends there, in the crowd, with signs that said, “WE’RE SO PROUD OF YOU, G!” And I saw Sister and Bubba and Tisha and they were holding signs too, but I don’t remember what they said because I can only remember their faces—overwhelmed with the goodness and the power of the moment. The crowds whistled and rang bells and yelled WE LOVE YOU! through megaphones. Cheerleading squads leaped and fire trucks blared their sirens and kids held signs that said: “GOD BLESS YOU, HEROES—GOD BLESS US ALL,” and there was no rider, not to the left or the right or behind or in front of me, who was not weeping. When we could steady ourselves long enough, we’d grab the hand of the rider beside us because it was too much to take in alone. And our tears and sweat would get all mixed up with the tears and the sweat of the others. And we’d grab the hands of the children who wanted to touch us and pass on the tears and the sweat. And it didn’t matter anymore if we were gay or straight or young or old or healthy or dying. We’d been through something real. It had hurt like hell, but we we’d finished. Together.

  Namaste

  Why Not Be Polite?

  Everyone

  Is God speaking.

  Why not be polite and

  Listen to

  Him?

  —Hafiz

  I love God, whoever he is, and I’d really like to get closer to him. I’ve been thinking about how one of the simplest ways to get close to a woman is to be good to her children. To be kind and gentle and to pay close attention to the things that make them special. To try to see her children the way she sees her children. And how God made us in his image. How he is the mother and father of all of us. So I wonder if that would be the best way to get closer to him too. By being kind and gentle to his children and noticing all of the things that make them special. So many of us spend our time trying to find God in books, but maybe the simplest way to God is directly through the hearts of his children.

  Recently a friend sent me a book called Nomaskar, which was written by a priest who followed Mother Teresa and studied her spirituality. I love Mother Teresa. I love her for what she did and, more important, why she did it. I believe she was living according to the Truth, so I try to pay close attention to her.

  The reason that Mother Teresa served the lepers and destitute and dying in the streets of Calcutta was not because Jesus told her to; it was because Jesus was leprous and destitute and dying in the streets of Calcutta. And since she worshipped Jesus as God, she figured she should probably go help him, because it didn’t make a lot of sense to worship God in church while he was dying alone in the streets. And she believed that it was silly to weep when thinking about Jesus being crucified two thousand years ago, yet not weep while watching Jesus crucified today, on the streets of Calcutta or Haiti or D.C. or in the high school hallway.

  Mother Teresa saw God in every human being, and when she held a dying leper and dressed his wounds, she did not imagine that she was helping Jesus die with dignity, she really was helping Jesus die with dignity. She was holding, as she would have said, “Jesus in the distressing disguise of the poor.” She understood that everyone is Jesus. She understood the meaning of the word Nomaskar, or Namaste, which means “the divine light in me sees and honors the divine light in you.” God in me recognizes God in you. And the God in me honors the God in you. So when she encountered a person, she would fold her hands, bow her head, and say, “Namaste.” And when she wanted to see God, she didn’t look up and away; she looked into the eyes of the person sitting next to her. Which is harder. Better.

  So. I’ve talked to God about it, and I am sooooooo not going to Calcutta. Not really my bag, baby. I’m a Sister of Sister . . . not a Sister of Charity. You understand.

  But I watch the news and my friends closely, and
I hear the sadness in people’s stories and the loneliness in their hearts and the pain of their pasts, so I know that Calcutta is everywhere. All of us live in some sort of poverty. Poverty of hope, poverty of peace, poverty of love. We are all poor in one way or another. Mama T. used to call material poverty the easiest poverty to alleviate. Everyone is suffering. And since everyone is God, I’d like to be kind, and at the very least not add to people’s pain.

  So I decided to start bowing to everyone who crossed my path. Just a little teeny bow of my head. Just enough to remind myself not to be a jerk, since no matter who I’m talking to, whether it’s a child, or a principal, or a gas station attendant, or a frenemy, or Craig, it’s GOD I’m talking to.

  And as I bow, I say, Namaste. God in me recognizes and honors God in you.

  I just think Namaste in my head, like the way Orthodox Jews wear a yarmulke to remind themselves that they are living under the hand of God. Or how Muslims pray five times a day to remind themselves of whom they serve. The world and the people in it are so beautiful when you’re awake. And so the bowing and the silent Namaste is just a little practice to remind myself what’s real. What an amazing life I’m leading and what a gift the people I meet are to me.

  I know all of this might sound a little nuts, but I have decided that I am just over worrying about that. Robin P. Williams said, “You’re only given a spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.” And maybe the world needs some crazy love. So I am embracing my spark of madness. Fanning it, even. And I’m bowing. And something’s happening because of it. It’s working. I’m starting to see God everywhere.