one long sigh

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Yesterday morning I put on my long-sleeve shirt.  Before I did that, I snuggled under blankets as the cool wind came through open windows.  Yesterday, the world turned to fall—well, the world, being the world within the borders of Memphis.  This much-anticipated metamorphosis is not uncommon; it occurs the middle of September every year.  However, like an obvious literary device, this change of season cued a paralleled adjustment within my own life. 

 

I came back from Nepal at the end of spring, and as summer began so did a new relationship, different plans for location, vocation, permanence.  And summer was one long sigh.  As she was beginning to give up her fight a few weeks ago, so was that relationship and those plans.  So with long sleeves came a freedom I didn’t desire but have embraced, and the quintessential gift of a few months in Europe. 

 

Soon enough I will be lighting candles in cathedrals, staring at works of Caravaggio, Klimt, Michelangelo, and sipping coffee in coffee shops that inspire you to write and dream and become something new. 

 

Soon enough. 

 

But let’s talk about the long-sleeve day…yesterday.  Both emotionally and physically, the past month has left me sitting on the steps, drinking coffee, praying, and watching the wind blow the limbs and leaves of the trees in the distance without touching my own skin—as if something was happening right in front of me, but was reluctant to inform me of any decision, shift in pattern.  Then the wind pushed through the trees and against my face and over my thoughts to lead me to Austria in just two days.  And to WWE wrestling that night. 

 

Now, let me explain.  There is nothing about professional wrestling that has ever intrigued me; in fact, I have always found it quite repulsive.  When Britta and I traveled to Harka Orphan Home last January, we quickly realized that the 15 children not only had a television in the middle of the jungle, but all they watched was the 24-hour WWE wrestling channel.  We would soon find out in the next few weeks that that was all any of the children in the surrounding villages watched.  It blew our minds. 

 

As two women who advocate non-violence, creativity, being outdoors, and nurturing the imagination, we cringed every time the children adoringly watched the masculine soap opera….and even more so when they tried to emulate such grotesque lifestyles on their bunk beds and bedroom floor.  Once, when we took a few of the kids to Chitwan National Park, Ishwor saw protective ropes surrounding a garden and excitedly began to climb through them and onto flowers yelling, “Wrestling!” as if they recreated a pen just for his entertainment.  Their one true obsession. 

 

Repulsion, however, turned to humor when I came back to Memphis from Nepal only to find the hidden secret of all my children on our street and around our neighborhood:  it was their one true obsession as well.  It seems that if the good news of Christ looked anything like John Cena, every child in the world—that had a television with a 24-hour WWE channel—would be saved.  Alas, the gospel calls its followers to die to flesh in order to live in the substitutionary body of Christ instead of trying one’s best to kill each other in the flashiest, sexiest of wrestling rings. 

 

Now, with the understanding of such a global phenomenon, I thought it much more hilarious to go with Cedric (C-Rock, his wrestling persona) to Monday Night RAW as a kind of farewell-for-now event.  And what a cultural experience it was.  I think the only place more diverse in Memphis is the Greyhound Bus Station.  Whether it was the wrestler who resembled Sloth from the film, Goonies, that invoked the crowd chant, “Brush your teeth (teef)” or the painfully obvious dramatic scripts they insert for cheap thrills and/or boos, I found myself shaking my head or looking at Cedric next to me in order to copy his ruckus. 

 

 And with such a classy exit, I say ‘Shalom, Y’all’…and…

 

Auf Wiedersehen.