Excerpts

This notebook is full of searching and finding and looking and seeing--when was I ever so profound?

How is it that I used to know God so well and feel Him so intimately, yet now I can't remember the last time I felt the whisper of anything greater than myself inside me?

I did what I thought I should, I've surrounded myself with pictures and reminders of that holy place, assuming the peace and comfort it brought me would be remembered, but somewhere along the way I lost it.  I've been staring at this beautiful illumination for awhile now.

Be Still, let the Tide of Memories wash over you
Listen to the Whispers of the Saints
Feel the Breath of Wisdom refresh your mind
Return to the Place of Peace
your Holy Island

All this it exhorts me, and I've tried and tried to bring any or all of those things to fruition, but I don't know where my Holy Island is anymore.  Those remembered places, so dutifully copied down in this little grey book, don't resonate now.

One memory does, however.

It was the day of the Cuddy ducks on the ocean by Lindisfarne, a cold, grey day where the wind needled me and the light, icy rain hurt my face and eyes.  I was so--full that day, full with an angst I couldn't name and I didn't have cause for.  I set off alone and went deep into the nature preserve on the far side of the island, where I was whipped by razor-sharp sea grass and the wind was even worse.  I followed the crashing of the sea to a rise and sat and watched the ocean writhe and beat itself into oblivion agaisnt the rocks, and I remember trying to pray but not finding any of the right words to say.

I'm still sitting there now, being turned to numb stone by the freezing wind, watching the sea try mightily to devour the seaside and those hapless ducks, I'm sitting in a silence so resolute as to be belligerent, and where did my God go?  Where did my faith and intimacy and belief go?

When I was 16 I had my own issues to handle, still, but I hadn't lived through what I have now.  Somewhere, between the suicide of my friend's mother and going to Boston and losing my faith mentor and the disintegration of a three year romance and coming home again, I grew but my faith did not.  And now I sit in a pew on Sundays and enjoy saying the familiar words, but don't get any of that peace anymore.  God still exists, I suspect, but where he is in my life, I'm not sure, and I don't know how to go after him.  I don't know if I want to; maybe I'm scared of being disappointed and deepening this crisis of faith.

Oh, to be 16 and in that place again, where I could reconcile what didn't make sense to me with little difficulty.


Ultimately that day I spent on the dune was the same day I walked the Pilgrim's Way and reveled in the glory of companionship and faith.




I'd forgotten.

Kettering

I was 13 when we met, and I'd never pretend I knew you well.  You were a friend of a friend; we'd all talk sometimes after Film School Sunday mornings or we'd sit near one another at Selah Sunday nights.  I remember playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band together on game night, laughing and goofing off.  Later, when I dated your best friend, I remember visiting skeleton houses with you--we took turns pushing your wheelchair, and shouted down at you from half-finished windows.

And the hospital.  I visited you there.  What I remember best is the visceral shock I felt at seeing your laptop sitting innocently where your leg should have been.  And the quietness of the ride home after.

But while we were not good friends, while I never knew much about you or spent time alone with you, something about your life and death left an indelible mark on me that I haven't been able to shake.  I see hot air balloons and think of it, I hear certain songs and go back to that moment days before you left, when my mom said as gently as she could that you had the look, there was no coming back.  To the text I got at 3:00 on a normal afternoon, and the strange emptiness that followed.

Maybe it was that I was in my prime and felt myself invincible, yet watched you dwindle away, only a year older than me.  Maybe it was my overwhelming sensitivity to all kinds of injustice then, as I was mired in divorce and a new social climate.  More likely it was the first time I was ever faced with such an inescapably wrong outcome and reality.  Whatever the case, I haven't been able to escape your memory any more than I've been able to understand why someone, anyone like you should have to be ravaged at 16 and lose a battle with an unfeeling disease.

Whatever the case, Josh, I still remember you and seek to honor that memory.  I regret that I didn't know you better, but you taught me an incredible amount about the tenacity of the human spirit in the time I did spend with you.  Your memory continues to inform the way I value others and respect the sanctity of life.  I hope that wherever you are, you're happy and whole and smiling that infectious smile.  You earned that much and more.

Speak, but don't confide.

Fall in love and fall apart,
Things will end before they start.

This was an idea I first had three years ago while in the midst of discovering many new bands with powerful lyrics: what if I took the best lines from the songs I knew and put them together to tell my own story?  This piecemeal effort is what you'll find below, with all song and artist credits at the end of the post.  No plagiarism was intended.  Enjoy.


Tell me what you saw in me, and I'll try to replicate it with a scene:

All my delight, all that mattered,
I couldn't be at rest.
From what I liked, from what I gathered,
I couldn't be my best.

I never meant to cause you pain
Don't go, no
I never meant to lead you on,
Stay with me until I sleep within your arms
I only meant to please me, however.
But we can do much more together

I'm nothing but a selfish man
I could still love you through each stumble, shift and sway
And did you think I'd stay the night?
If it pleases you to leave me, just go,
And did you think I'd love you forever?
For I have no spell on you, it's all a ghost

So don't carry on, carrying efforts, oh no
Somewhere there's room for each of us to grow
If you want to live a lie, and love what you lose
I'd become what I hated when I was with you
But every option I have costs more than I've got.

No man is an island, this I know
The end will come slow
But can't you see that maybe you were the ocean, and I was just a stone?
And love breaks your heart
I know when all's said we're the same.
But love without pain isn't really romance.

I can't get out of what I'm into with you,
Does it trouble your head the way you trouble mine?
Shed your love, shed your love
What might have been lost--

------

I can remember when it was good,
Moments of happiness in bloom
All of the love we left behind,
Watching the flashbacks intertwine,
Memories I will never find.

Step down, just once learn how to be alone
The ground beneath me gone
The sky might open up
And sometimes I can't believe it,
But I'm moving past the feeling and into the light.

Because, after all, it's just one of those things.










-------
Falling Away With You -- Muse
We Looked Like Giants -- Death Cab
What's Wrong -- Grizzly Bear
This Song -- Grizzly Bear
Sleeping Ute (title) -- Grizzly Bear
Speak in Rounds -- Grizzly Bear
Holland -- Sufjan Stevens
Impossible Soul -- Sufjan Stevens
Enchanting Ghost -- Sufjan Stevens
Only This Moment -- Royksopp
7/4 (Shoreline) -- Broken Social Scene
The Suburbs -- Arcade Fire
The Wolves -- Bon Iver
Black Flies -- Ben Howard
All We Ask -- Grizzly Bear
Exile Vilify -- The National
Believing is Art -- Spoon
Shed Your Love -- The Helio Sequence
Plans -- Grizzly Bear
Fire Away -- Dawes

Vespers

I dream of a lake, drifting.  The stars overhead are mirrored perfectly on the glassy water.  The prow moves smoothly through them, silent ripples spreading behind me, and all I can hear are crickets, the wind, the soft hoot of an owl.

It might be a perfect, eternal moment.  I might, just then, be perfectly at peace, perfectly happy.

Still moments in the traffic of life.  My church on a Sunday night, spread out below the screen, talking and laughing.  Letting my feet melt into the sand, feeling the ocean rush around them, like I'm flying through the water holding my dad's hand.  A candle-lit service on the top of a mountain, sincere testimonials ringing out below the fishhook.  And the other mountain, my mountain, standing with my arms outstretched as the wind blew me into the sunset, across the ocean.

I live in a city, the second of two.  Peace has fled, solemnity with it, quietude lost in the wail of sirens and the drunken laughter of a thousand students.  I want to catch that girl on the lake, staring at the stars, and ask her how she does it.  How she has found such contentment and calm.  Was it because she knew less than I, had weathered fewer storms?  Did she have a better grasp on the tenuousness of the present than I do?  Was her God more present and obvious, His hand a more insistent touch in her life?

A thousand sounds have echoed in my ears, a thousand thoughts have passed through my mind, all of them as alike as anybody else's.  But few have made me feel weak.  Few have left me empty and washed out, as if I simply have no more to give.  I draw now from that girl on the lake, whose tranquility was so complete.  She knew that it would be alright.  Her boat would sail to the right shore, the bed above would be warm and soft, the sun would rise again to greet her.  Her God was watching, always listening.

And perhaps, with the passage of time and the dimming of memory, I will be there again, watching the stars and feeling at peace.

Road to Rocky Top

A year ago, I would never have imagined I'd be sitting here writing these words to you guys from my 17th floor room in Boston.  For one thing, I couldn't begin to imagine what college would be like.  For another, after having just to committed to Boston University, I'm sure I couldn't imagine that I would reverse that decision a year later.  But since my announcement to transfer came as a shock to many of you, I thought I'd offer some insight as to why I decided to go down this path.

College has offered me incredible insights about myself, my world, and my life.  I learned, for instance, what it feels like to have only an hour or two of class in one day.  I learned how to balance two jobs with classwork and a social life.  I learned the value of a dollar and how rough it is to feel poor in a big city.  But I also discovered what it feels like to be a number in a large, bureaucratic organization primarily concerned with money.  That sounds a lot more anti-establishment than I mean it to, but I don't know any other way to say it.  I learned how hard it is to not go home for months at a time.  Perhaps most surprisingly, I realized that I'm not afraid to say I'm from Tennessee and that I miss it every day.

With these insights came the creeping sense that I was not where I truly wanted to be or where I had thought I would be when I enrolled in college.  I am not trying to tell anyone that they should not go to BU.  If you're happy here, I would never say you're wrong to be.  And if you're considering it or think it sounds like a good place to be, it definitely has its nice perks.  But somewhere along the way, I realized I still saw college as that beautiful grassy quad surrounded by academic buildings, not a city street with a train down its spine.  I felt like, for all its benefits, I wasn't getting what I had thought I would from school.  This sense of dissatisfaction grew in the face of repeated sexual assaults on campus, a nearby shooting, and the administration's slow and stiffly formal response to the early warning signs on campus.  I didn't like being reminded that I am vulnerable and that even in a guarded building one of my peers might like to do me or one of my loved ones harm.

I understand that this is life: most people are good and wouldn't harm me, but a few bad apples make the whole bunch seem bad.  I don't think that by transferring I'll necessarily find a safe microbubble where nothing bad happens and everyone loves everyone else.  But I can't deny that BU's actions (and lack thereof) really left me with a bitter, bitter taste in my mouth.

And then there's the money.  When I realized the true implications of the cost of this school, all the years of debt I'd have, the strain it put my family under, then I simply felt insulted by BU.  They can build me a million dollar dining hall I don't need and a lacrosse stadium I'll probably never go to, but they can't properly address rapes and sexual assaults on campus.  Where is the disconnnect here?  What is my money really funding?

All colleges are businesses now.  This sad and disgusting fact is not one I'm happy with, but neither is it something I can change.  So I'll move from one very expensive business to another less expensive one.  If I'm not 100% happy there, hey, at least I won't be paying for my unhappiness 15 years from now.

I don't regret going to BU for a second.  I met some truly wonderful people here, and I had the chance to learn about myself in ways I don't think I could have elsewhere.  But unfortunately, I don't think it's the place for me to stay for the next 3 years.  With that said...

The University of Tennessee at Knoxville better get ready.

Ego Sum

Boston. My school, my choice. My choice? My will? I'm not always sure. Every decision marks out an indelible, irrevocable stamp on what is to come. What will be will be framed in the past, will fit into the mosaic of choices and deliberations gone by. My present now could have been in Michigan, Tennessee, Connecticut, anywhere. I could have chosen anywhere. And then the people I've met, the ones I know and cherish, would not be those I know now. I'd have friends in another town, another place. The present's hold on me, so inescapable, was founded so tenuously.

Would I be the same person if I weren't here? It depends on how you define self. Is self a soul? A personality? Memories you possess? Is my self Grace Ellen Oberholtzer, born on August 7 in Atlanta 18 years ago, daughter of Chris and Jane (now divorced), older sister to Benton and Will, lover of video games, hockey, and watching the stars on cold nights?

If I didn't have those things--if I stopped liking hockey or if my parents hadn't divorced--would I still be Grace?

I don't know. I'm not convinced. My choices weren't all free, if any truly are, so why then would I be able to choose to change?

I ask because I returned home again, and knowing self is crucial yet shaky when you return to those places you knew long ago. I sat in the church of my youth, where my youngest brother was baptized, where I first felt godly awe, and I knew I was not the same as I had been 5 years ago, when last I was there. I'm older, taller, less awkward. I know more about history, math, literature. And my old friends say I'm mostly the same now as then, but am I? Am I Grace, the same one who sat there in the pew half a decade ago?

I don't think so. I don't know what I would have said to myself then, or how I would have treated 13-year-old me, but it wouldn't be the same way I'd treat myself now. And yes, those years are full of change for anyone, but are 20-25 any less tumultuous? 30-35? Anything can happen anytime. So I don't think I'm exactly the same.

To consider that--my shifting sense of self--in regard to past decisions and present-day circumstances leads to the kinds of questions I'll never answer or know. I can only say that it would have been a different Grace on April 10, 2012 in Michigan or Knoxville or Virginia. One with most of my memories, but one building new, different ones all the time.

Who knows what they might have grown into.

Perspective

It's been a semester and a half now here in Boston. I've learned the hard way about strange grading schemes, hard-to-comprehend teaching fellows, and fishing for quarters to do laundry. I've also met some truly amazing people I wouldn't have found otherwise. People who stretch me, comfort me, and challenge me to be who I am as best I can.

One of my former teachers asked me to come back for her class over spring break to speak with her students. She said it will be an open question/answer format and I can talk about whatever I like, within reason. Which left me with this question: where do I start? What can I possibly say to a bunch of sophomores and some high school juniors about what it's been like to search for colleges, travel across the country, and live in a huge city with thousands of other students?

I'll start with a memory.

Summer, 2008. The horrors of 8th grade at a brand-new middle school were behind me; my parents' fresh divorce was ahead of me. I faced a new high school with practically no friends to meet me there. It was hot. I was bored.

What I had: a church community. A family that loved me. Brothers I wouldn't trade for the world. Books to read. New music to listen to. Friendship I was only beginning to appreciate. And a dream that one day I would return to the New England I loved and pined for. I promised myself I would, that hot summer before my freshman year of high school.

4 years passed and so much changed. I moved from house to house as the divorce settled down. I fell in with different groups at school as I learned who I was. I flirted with joining the military. I bowled as a Rebel. I went to England and Scotland and remembered who my god was. I went to two wonderful proms. I got a car and a job. I took nine AP courses over the course of three years and learned my academic limits. Back in Connecticut, my friends were fighting, falling out, meeting people I had never heard of, growing up apart from me just as I did them. But my dream was the same. My picture of New England, however naive, was the same.

So when the college selection process began, I didn't consider any schools within 500 miles of Franklin. Tennessee, I was sure, was not really home. New England was home. I shot for Ivy; when that didn't work, Boston University stepped up with an incomparable aid package, and before I knew it I was signing my name and my parents were depositing the first check.

My first weekend in college was the wake-up call. So many of my floormates were from the area and already knew people they could hang out with; if not that, they had made friends at orientation and the first-year service project I couldn't attend. I spent a lot of time in my room wondering if my choice was right and realizing the finality of being 1,000 miles away from a place I had grown to love, plus my family and friends.

Since then, I have come to enjoy my time at BU, but it isn't without surprises and struggles. Being one among 16,000 undergraduates makes me feel faceless from time to time, but I need only to remember that the people I care about know me, and I can find comfort. School administration can, at times, seem blind to the needs and problems of the community, but then, theirs is a daunting task, and changes can't happen at the speed of light.

Most importantly, I have learned balance. I know the value of my home better than ever now, and missing it daily only makes it sweeter when I'm back again. I've learned when to work and when to play, even if I don't get it right all the time.

When I made the promise to myself almost 5 years ago, I never thought I would end up where I am today. I have not found the place I left in 2007. It surely disappeared the moment I pulled out of my driveway. Its memory is preserved, but I know better now: a dream doesn't have to age as you do, but in aging you are already changing what the dream will be like when you get it, if you do. It may not be what you expected, but at least you finally made it.