Fatales - Part 4

October 16, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in fiction

Okay, you caught me. I am literally so bogged down with #NaNoWriMo prep, working on new stuff for the #CreateLounge blog, and just everything else that I'm too busy to blog about, well, anything else. So, I'm continuing to post excerpts from "Fatales". But, in my defense, I'm in full-on fiction mode right, and, also, I just really really want you to read it.

So, here you go.

(Disclaimer: I do not condone or support cigarette use, or excessive drinking for that matter, but these were real people, and it was the 40's, so stuff happened. Don't smoke, kids.)

London, a burning city still standing.

The pub was noisy, but, then again, it always managed to be. The air was celebratory, despite the circumstances, or, more likely, very much because of them. There’s a spirit to being “the only one left standing”, and it was one England, London especially, had mastered.

The pub itself certainly had reason to be glad, being one of the few buildings left intact on the block. Its patrons regularly toasted to this fact and nearly everything else, happy, as always, for any reason to celebrate.

Tonight, though, these patrons had good reason to eat, drink, and be merry, for they knew what tomorrow held. So they had eagerly complied with the spirit and sang and drank into the early hours, willing the day, the morning, to come a little later, if it could.

Now, however, the room had taken on a calmer, if no less buoyant, tone, almost tense. All eyes focused on two drinkers on opposite sides of one of the tables. The mugs crowded the surface so much they had started stacking them. By all accounts, it should have ended three pints of bitters ago, but Jameson couldn’t help himself. Masculine pride demanded it, and the generous portion of alcohol he had already consumed prevented him from seeing he was licked.

The crowd chanted steadily but quietly, astounded as much as excited, as yet another pair of pints was presented to the combatants and subsequently tipped. Bottoms up. The glass hit the table, and they cheered. Another round.

It was getting ridiculous and dangerous, even as drinking games go. A wary friend placed a hand to Jameson’s shoulder, but he never got to his word of caution as the man quickly and angrily shrugged him off and reached for the new pint before him. He missed the handle on the first try. His competitor, much to his annoyance, politely waited for him to get hold of it before they downed their drinks. The mugs landed on the table to another round of roars from the audience and a replacement round of bitters from the bar.

Jameson stared down his opponent, or tried to, but his gaze also captured the back wall so it was far less intimidating than he would have liked. He reached for the new drink only to see the opposite mug was empty. It managed to dawn quickly on his beer-addled brain that his rival had already finished this round. With horror quickly turning to nausea he gaped at the sight. With a finger, the cocky upstart challenger pushed Jameson’s mug towards him.

“You’re down by one, mate,” the voice came soft and lilting. In a clearer frame of mind, he’d have thanked his lucky stars the beautiful woman sitting across the table was even talking to him. But he was losing. Worse still, he was heading to the floor.

Jameson made a feeble attempt for the mug, missed, and seemingly out of balance, slipped from his stool and was out like a light before he hit the boards. The crowd erupted, out of equal parts astonishment and excitement.

“Bloody hell, Wake!” was the popular response as everyone took a chance to congratulate the champion of the evening. Nancy seemed quietly amused by the whole incident. Of course, it was not surprising to her. Poor Jameson, though, if he remembered tonight at all in the morning it would only be with regret, but it didn’t matter if he remembered or not, no one would ever let him forget it.

Nancy accepted the congratulations and excused herself to reapply her lipstick. That many drinks had taken its toll.

She’d miss the pub, she decided. London was not her favorite city, but it had its charms, and in times like these, it had become a second home to her, to so many. Nevertheless, she had long since decided she preferred wine to beer. English pubs were friendly enough, but give her a little French brasserie for her troubles.

And a cool Marseille night, she thought, and a radio and a man staring at her in the candlelight. She sighed and sniffed the air. And a pack of Gitanes, she added. She had never liked British cigarettes. But they were all she could get, and everything had to be rationed, of course. But she could sure use one now.

Maybe when she landed. But of course not. The Bosch would see to that, wouldn’t they? Still she had never been a stranger to the black market. There had been that one little bistro in Marseilles and that owner who always got her Gitanes. Gitanes and champagne. She wondered if he and that place were still there.

She shook her head to cast the thought away. No, she couldn’t think about Marseilles. If she thought about Marseilles, next thing she’d be thinking of the sea, and their flat with a view, and little Picon, and… Henri.

She couldn’t help herself.

She shook her head again. It had been a long time since she had tasted the Mediterranean air, but she wouldn’t be doing herself any favors bringing it up now. It had been a long time, and it would likely be a while more.

She sighed again. She wouldn’t be far. By tomorrow, she wouldn’t be that far away at all, but it might as well be a million miles. It wasn’t as if she could borrow a car and go visit. Besides being incredibly dangerous, it was damn foolish. She could miss it all later. She could miss it all when the job was done.

But she didn’t want to think about that either. That was tomorrow and this was tonight. And tonight it was indeed eat, drink, and be merry, because tomorrow they jumped into hell.

Nancy rejoined the rabble-rousers. She noticed someone had been kind enough to hoist Jameson off the floor and lean him nicely on a stool against the wall.

“Let him sleep it off,” someone remarked.

“Tell me something, Wake,” another, Rourke, commented as he waved a hand for her to join him. “Where’d you learn to drink like that?”

“Learn?” Nancy answered with a red-lipped smirk. “I don’t think I ever learned. It comes naturally.”

“The only people I know who can drink like that are the French.”

“That’s because the French drink French wine,” Nancy replied. “British beer is not much, by comparison.”

“I knew it,” he roared and slapped the table. “I knew you were French.”

She shook her head in reply. “Afraid not.”

“Half?” he ventured. “Just a bit?”

“Distant relations, perhaps,” Nancy answered with a smile. “I’m afraid I’m only French by sheer force of will. But if you’re wondering if my drinking prowess has any correlation whatsoever to my heritage, the answer is yes.” She helped herself to a sip from Rourke’s drink. It was hard, but nothing she couldn’t handle. She had to smile again at the lipstick stain she left on the glass as she set it down. “I’m Australian.”

Rourke pounded the table in response. “Yes, that’s it! I knew there was something about you.”

“Many things, I can assure you,” she added and then mingled back into the crowd. The night was drawing on but she had absolutely no desire to let it end. Happily, neither did anyone else. They all were more or less in the same boat. Or plane, as it were.

Unfortunately, as nights do, this one did end. They closed the pub down, then found themselves wandering the streets of London into the wee hours. They sang what songs they could remember, but mostly they strode, desperate for any excuse to prolong this, whatever last bit of joy they could muster.

At long last, though, it became clear that time was against them. They exchanged their goodbyes. More than a few of the gentlemen asked Nancy for a customary kiss of good luck. She obliged them. She could use some of her own. But then it really was the end, and they each found themselves in whatever directing was “home” for the evening.

Nancy made it back to her room without much trouble. Rourke, and Jameson, had observed correctly. Drink had never been much of an issue before. She figured that might be an asset in the days to come. It certainly had been in the days before.

It had been a good night, she decided. As good a send-off as she could ask for. When she did return to her place, however, she found reality waiting for her. The doorman had a message for her. The urgent kind that she was sure someone had sternly made him promise to give her but under no circumstances tell her who had sent it.

The Hotel. 9 o’clock.

That was all. But she knew. It was all she needed.

She thanked the doorman and found her way to her room, where she immediately fell to the bed, only discarding her coat before she did. Nancy caught a few hours of sleep but was up with plenty of time. The hangover wasn’t much to deal with, though she couldn’t help the anxiety.

Tonight.

She grabbed her coat. Camel hair, her favorite, and her purse. Everything else she knew would be waiting for her at the airfield, neatly packed for the drop. She let herself out of the building like it was any other day, even wishing a good day to the doorman, as if she would see him tonight. She decided to risk a cab to make it her appointment.

She knew a meeting like this wasn’t uncommon. Maurice liked to prep all his agents personally. But they always met at the Flat. She knew the company had other spots, but she had never been to the Hotel before.

The cab dropped in front of the Northumberland at 9 o’clock sharp. It certainly wasn’t the shiniest of hotels, but, then again, it didn’t need to be, did it? She went up to the front desk, but, clearly, she was expected as the man at the counter only nodded and led her to the lift. They got off at the third floor and he motioned her towards a closed door just down the hall. Nancy knocked twice.

“Come in,” came a raspy voice from the other side. Nancy recognized it, which surprised her. Her suspicion was confirmed when she opened the door and found the room empty except for a single table, behind which sat Vera Atkins.

“Nancy Wake,” Atkins said, almost announcing her. She tapped her cigarette against an ashtray and pointed at the chair opposite her. “Have a seat.”

Fatales - Part 3

October 09, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in fiction

What can I say? One good turn deserves another. I don't know if it's all the prep I'm doing for NaNoWriMo, but I've definitely got story on the brain, which means I can't help but want to give you more of "Fatales". It also means I'm so deep in prep writing that I don't want to blog, but, hey, more fiction for you.

So, here you go, Part 3. Let me know what you think.

Baker’s Street. Where the fire is lit.

People believe that wars are fought in fields, on sea and sky. They are. But soldiers aren’t the only ones who fight them.

People believe that wars are won with charges, flags planted and despots overthrown. They aren’t. They are won with secrets and lies, and the men at the top aren’t the only ones who keep them.

There were many places scattered across London and the Isles that the Special Operations Executive called home. The nature of the work required it. There was a headquarters, but, due to the very nature of the work, few agents ever saw it. And whether by craft, cunning, or cruel irony, it sat a stone’s throw from the home of history’s greatest detective. A man who also did not exist.

Vera found Maurice in his office. She let herself in. He gave a slight nod to her as he sat reviewing documents at his desk. She busied herself replacing the files he had already reviewed with the new ones she was carrying. After a minute, he looked up from his desk to find her still standing there.

“Something the matter, Vera?” he asked in that friendly tone of his.

She replied by placing a file she had tucked under her arm directly in front of him. He opened it. Inside was a single slip of paper. He read it.

“What is this?” he asked, a moment later.

“A message from Jacques,” she answered. “He managed to pass it on as he was making his way out.”

“How did this get to us?”

“Via a courier in Arnhem.”

“How did we get it out of Arnhem?” His face always had that quizzical look about it, even when he was serious. There were times it grated on Vera.

“I called in a favor with N-Section,” she replied.
“You?” His face looked surprised now, genuinely. “I don’t recall requisitioning that.”

“It had to be quick,” she said, matter of factly. “I took the liberty.”

“One of theirs brought it out?” he said with a gesture to the wall, encompassing N-section and possibly the Netherlands with it.

“No, one of ours.” Vera, on the other hand, had spent a lifetime developing a very severe look. An indispensable tool for women working with men.

Maurice gave her another quizzical look.
“I sent Hall,” she replied.

“Hall?” he exclaimed, his eyebrows rising to the ceiling. “She only just got back. How did you convince her to do that?”

“I never had to convince Virginia to do anything,” she said, her voice flat, though layered with contempt. “And neither did you.”

“This again?” he sighed and placed the file down. “It was hard enough to get her out the first time. The situation has become far more dangerous.”

“It wasn’t exactly a picnic before.”

“I was only thinking of her safety, Vera.”

She managed to maintain her composure, another habit she had honed since she began working for Colonel Buckmaster. Inside, however, she was throwing the word back in his face. This was war. “Safety” did not belong in their vocabulary.

“She was our best, Maurice,” she replied, icily this time. “And she was more than willing.”

“I don’t disagree with either point,” he said, his voice taking on that parental tone of his, which vied with the quizzical look as to which could agitate her more. “I saw she was taken care of, didn’t I?”

“Spain was a waste of her talents,” Vera pointed out. “A desk even more so.”

“What would you have me do?” he asked, throwing his hands up exasperatedly, as if there were some pleasant, domestic argument.

“As she asked,” Vera replied.

“That’s not possible.” He shook his head.

“The Americans don’t seem to think so,” and she let it hang, heavily, in the air between them.

“Well, that is their business.”

“Yes, and now so is Virginia.”

He tapped his fingers busily on the table. Then, with a sigh and a shake of his head, he let the matter drop, not unlike a father with an impudent child. Vera knew the maneuver, it was one of Buckmaster’s usual, and it never ceased to infuriate her. She countered by letting him find her still standing there when he looked up. With a slight nod, she indicated the message that brought her in. He seemed to suddenly remember it.

He closed the file, much to Vera’s astonishment.

“What’s to be done about that?” she asked.

“About what?” he replied, matter-of-factly himself. “A hasty note sent through back channels to get to us? I don’t see there’s anything to do about it.”

“Maurice-“ she started.

“Colonel, Vera,” he corrected. “Civilian or not, this is a military office.”

“Colonel,” she intoned. “If that message is even slightly accurate-“

“I spoke with Gilbert only last week,” he stopped her. “He says all’s well.”

“We’ve already lost most of Prosper,” she replied. “What part of ‘all’s well’ does that reside in?”

“He says Madeleine is fine.”

“How can we trust the word of a single man?”

“It’s not as if he’s a stranger,” Buckmaster replied with a huff.

“It doesn’t matter that he’s a friend-“ Vera could feel her voice rising, despite herself, or very much because of herself.

“And who is Tania?” he asked, holding up the message. “How do we know her?”

Vera breathed, wrapping herself in composure again. “She’s Jacques’ fiancée.”

“Well, this is the first I’ve heard of her. You want me to take the word of a stranger over one of our best?” he said, and he turned his head to the side and in that way of his, added, “Now who doesn’t understand the game?”

He let the note drop, closing the file over it, as if that would make the whole, inconvenient affair go away. It would, of course. Buckmaster was the head of F-section. Vera, for all the “additional duties” she had gained, was still his secretary, with all the implications and restrictions that title came with when it wore a skirt. She could only stand there and take it, and though she knew it would do no good, for her own sake she had to add.

“It at least deserves some investigation.”

Buckmaster sat back in his chair, folding his hands. For a moment he seemed angry, then disappointed, and then he was the exasperated parent again. He slid the file back to her.

“Fog of war, Vera,” he said, all understanding, all sympathy. “Not everything that comes through is one hundred percent. You know that. So Jacques here, fleeing the country, leaves his fiancée, the woman he loves behind. He hears that she’s in danger. Naturally, he’s concerned. Of course, he sends word, urgently.” And he smiled as if it were all very romantic. “You want us to verify? We did. Gilbert said nothing of it, and he would if he knew. That’s enough for me.” And he let it hang, unspoken, that it should be enough for her.

And that was that. In his opinion, which was the one that counted in F-Section. There was nothing more to discuss. Vera picked up the file and turned to let herself out, without another word. Only something caught her eye as she picked up the file off his desk. The name tag on one of the other files Buckmaster had been reviewing.

Maurice was again surprised to find his secretary still there, in his office, when she laid a finger down on the file in front of him. He looked up at her, quizzical.

“You’re sending her in?” she asked quietly.

“Yes,” he replied in a tone that he was sure conveyed how surprised he was to have his judgment questioned, again. “She passed all her training, with flying colors. I know you had your reservations, Vera-“

“Yes,” she interrupted. “I still do. Did you see the code phrase she selected? The one about-?”

“Yes, yes,” he butted in before she could finish it. “She’s wild but effective, and I believe,” and that he emphasized. “She will be a good fit. She’s going to be our coordinator in Auvergne.”

“That’s Hector’s area,” she added.

“Yes, but the east section could use some shoring up.” He caught Vera staring at the picture clipped to the file. “Weren’t you just telling me we should take advantage of whatever asset we can?”

Vera looked up from the desk. They locked gazes for a minute. At last, she lifted her finger off the file and stood back.

“If you say so,” she replied, flat voice, composed, compliant, and he seemed pleased at this. She let herself out. Buckmaster made some pleasant comment for her to have a good day as he turned back to the files before him. She made no reply, only a quick glance over her shoulder just before she shut the door behind her. She thought back to the stare she had given him a moment ago.

Vera Atkins wondered, in that moment, if he could see the wheels turning behind her eyes.

Fatales - Part 2

October 02, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in fiction

So, since I've spent the last month talking Heroes and Villains and how it pertains to fiction, it felt like a good time to break out some more of the story I've been working on. You can check out the first excerpt here.

Enjoy.

Fatales

Europe. Spring, 1944.
As World War 2 rages on in the months leading up to D-Day, behind enemy lines, Allied agents in networks all across France are working to gather intelligence and harrow Hitler's efforts at every turn. But there is a traitor in their midst. Unbeknownst to Allied command in London, Prosper, the Paris circuit of the French Resistance, has been blown, and if the leak isn't plugged it could spell the end for the entire Resistance effort and the war.
Tasked by Vera Atkins herself, Nancy Wake must parachute into the heart of Nazi-occupied France to face this threat, with the help of Violette Szabo, Virginia Hill, Pearl Witherington, and Christine Granville.
'Fatales' is a legend of the female agents of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The unsung heroes whose efforts undercover and behind the lines helped to bring an end to one of the greatest conflicts in human history.
The story is fictional. The women in it were anything but.

Paris. A city of lights shrouded in darkness.

She heard the siren the moment they were out on the roof. Just her luck. An air raid in the middle of a prison escape. She looked at the other two. No need to be stealthy now. With a nod she took off across the top of the building.

The November chill stung her lungs as she ran. The autumn night had given the rooftops just enough damp to make them perilous. She nearly lost her footing as she made her way across, but she went as quickly as she could. There was worse peril behind.

They’ll be lining everyone up by now, she thought. Doing a headcount. How long before they found they were short by three? Maybe the guards would be cautious. Maybe they’d count again just to be sure. But, no, she knew. They weren’t that lucky.

They were coming up to the edge of the block. They clambered up the uneven roof from 82 to 80. She had memorized this place, this street in particular, before she had been arrested, before they had caught up with her. She had walked Avenue Foch at least once a week before they had begun hanging posters. A precaution that, at the time, she had almost ridiculed herself for, but which now might just spell their escape.

80 lay underneath their feet. There was a small gap and then number 78. It was only an alley that led to the square in the middle of the block. Ten, perhaps twelve feet wide. It wasn’t much of a gap, if you ignored the fact that you were six stories up. She could jump it. Not enough to make the other roof, but there were balconies all the way down the side of the building. She could catch one, scurry along the side, and climb down into the street. She might make it ahead of the patrols.

But, no, she reminded herself. She had Starr and Faye with her. Starr might be able to make it, but Faye was in his forties. He’d hit the ground if he were even fool enough to try.

It should have been only her. It was the wisest choice, by far. She was the youngest, the smallest. One was easier to escape than three. But if one of them had escaped there would have been no hope for the other two. And Starr had contacts, or so he claimed. She had no one. There was no one left. If only the skylight hadn’t given her so much trouble. Starr and Faye should’ve gone on without her. They could have taken separate paths. But would it have mattered with the air raid siren? The guards would’ve noticed them gone in any case.

With jumping the gap out the question, she made her way to the edge of the building, the corner where the street met the alley six stories below. She searched the image in her head. From street level she thought she remembered, and, yes, there it was: a drainpipe. She signaled the men to follow her lead and make it quick as she gripped the pipe and fearlessly swung her legs over the side into the night air. She shimmied down with all speed, counting down the floors as she went, unafraid of the height or the ice-cold pipe in her bare hands. She reminded herself who was behind them.

They’d be looking by now. Who was missing?

A wrought iron fence ran against the building. She could sense the ornamental spikes in the darkness as she neared the ground floor. It looked like this would still come down to a jump. With a quick breath, she swung her body out and pushed away from the building, landing in the alley on her hands and knees. It was rough but survivable.

She looked up and saw Starr a floor up and Faye above him. She waited, crouched in the darkness. She thought about running. She couldn’t be blamed. There was no time to waste, and they were taking much longer than she had. But they had waited for her, so she waited for them.

Starr must have seen her alight as he took a similar motion when he got just above the first floor, landing in the alley next to her, though somewhat less gracefully. Faye soon followed. She heard the landing in the dark and knew he hadn’t hit it right. He rolled onto his side immediately and let out a groan. He clutched at his leg.

Immediately, she and Starr grabbed Leon and hoisted him up. They had to move. It was night, but they were still wearing their prison garb, and, stepping out from 84 Avenue Foch, they were beyond conspicuous. No sooner did they step out into the avenue, in fact, but they heard the alarm. No time. They crossed the avenue.

She went to her mental map. Paris. The streets she had walked everyday until she could find them blindfolded. Her old flat wasn’t too far from here, but, no, they knew it. They had arrested her there. The Bois de Boulogne was west of them just down the avenue. Trees, water, but that’s the first place they’d look. If they wanted to hide, the streets of Paris were their best option. The Arc de Trioumphe was east, but Place de l’Etoile wasn’t any better a hiding spot. It didn’t see the crowds these days as it once had, nowhere to hide in the bustle and too much a landmark not to be watched.

She guided them south, down the small roads and back alleys, through the maze that is Paris. Her Paris, her city, her maze. Faye was beginning to limp a little quicker but still needed the two of them on either side. She could feel their pursuers behind, closing in. She expected to hear the whistle of a patrol any moment. This was their city and they would search every street. But what choice did she have? Only to keep moving and try and stay ahead. But move where?

Prosper had been arrested. So had Teacher. Chaplain had only been brought in last week. Perhaps Gilbert was still out. But where she could only guess. There was no one. She had been it, and they got her.

“We’re buggered, Khan,” Starr spoke breaking through her thoughts as they hobbled along.

“Come on,” she replied more as a reflex than anything. “Just a bit further.” A lie, and they both knew it, but she had to keep spirits up, didn’t she? Didn’t someone?

“Faye’s useless,” he snapped back. Even Leon nodded at that.

“We’re not leaving him behind.”

“Go on,” Faye whispered, wincing with every step as they continued on.

“Leave him with me,” Starr added. “We’ll make our way. You go on.”

“I can’t-“ she began.

“You’re the only one, Noor,” he cut her off as he halted them at a crossroads. “Listen, we’ll go that way.” He pointed down a side street. “You find your way.”

“John-“

“None of that, now.” He shook his head. “You know what’s at stake.”

She did. They, all three of them, did. Leon and John both gave her the same look and nod. Utter desperation but, behind it, the stubborn will to try. She returned it. Then they spun away and hobbled off into the night. A half breath later, she was off in the opposite direction.

Still the question of where faced her.

She had heard of a safe house, on Rue de Babylone, but the cold and damp was beginning to settle into her bones. The Sicherheitsdienst had been interrogating her for a month. When she wasn’t being questioned they put her in that box. Her muscles ached. Her scars burned. Rue de Babylone was on the other side of Seine. The SD was at her heels, and the Gestapo, the gendarmes, and every other bloody Nazi in Paris were in front of her. She’d never make it. Even if she could, she realized she had never been to the safe house, she couldn’t even remember the number, if she had ever known it. And would they know her?

Still she ran through the cold, November streets of Paris.

There was no escape, no freedom, no hope. Save one. Not so much a hope as an option. A way to make sure some good came of this night, even if it wasn’t her freedom. It shouldn’t be far either. She had made the walk from her flat, taking different paths each time, but she knew the destination in her mind. A street up from her place on Rue de la Faisanderie and three streets over. She ran on, her destination before her.

She counted her steps, each one taking her farther from and closer to danger. She heard a siren behind her. She wondered for a moment if they had caught Starr and Faye, but she didn’t stop or look back. It shouldn’t be too far. She remembered it was just in sight of… Yes.

She rounded the corner into a circle, streets branching out like spokes in every direction, and just there in front of her: the Jewel of Paris. The Tower stood before her. Cold and gray in the night, yet proud. She couldn’t help but pause at the sight, if only for a breath; time was of the essence.

She ran quickly along the circle. The city was dark, nearly deserted. A bit of luck as she certainly stood out in the attire of a prisoner. If her running around at this hour wasn’t suspicious enough. She couldn’t think about that, though; there wasn’t a moment to spare.

She found the post box right where it always was. Unassuming, like every other post box on every other block, which was the idea. A perfect dead drop location. It had been a while, but Noor had left and received messages from contacts here before. She thought it was just possible that maybe the Bosch didn’t know about this spot. And if there were any contacts left, maybe they would check it. It was a long maybe, but it was all she had.

Only now did it occur to her she had nothing to write on or with. She looked around, hoping against sense that perhaps someone had dropped a scrap of paper, that maybe an enveloped had carelessly missed the slot or hadn’t fallen all the way in. But why should her luck hold out tonight.

The sirens were getting closer. There were more of them, all around. They would be on her any second.

She checked the box again. She noticed the flap on the front to keep out the rain and got an idea. A glance nearby turned up a small stone, a broken-off piece of cobblestone perhaps. It was sharp. She lifted the flap and, using an edge off the stone, began to carve. It was slow and her fingers fumbled, numb from the night. This could be useless, of course. No one might ever think to look here. There might be no one left to look. But she had to try, and hope.

With the final letter cut into the metal, she gave her work a last glance before dropping the flap. She took off running again. They couldn’t find her close. She had to give it the best chance, if the message was going to get to anyone at all.

She ran towards the Tower. She wondered, for a moment, if she could outrun them, but she knew she couldn't. She’d never make it across the river. The bridges would be watched and, this time of year, the water would be a death sentence. Neverthless she ran. Maybe John and Leon made it out. Maybe the Bosch had caught her trail and missed them. She doubted it, but it didn’t much matter.

This might be her last breath of fresh air. It was cold, but it was free. And it was Paris. She had first seen it when she was six. her Paris She nearly smiled at the thought that Suresnes was behind her. Maybe the old house was still there. The city had been beautiful then. Before the war. It had been a city of lights. Of dreams and music. She recalled the Conservatory, Mademoiselle Boulanger. She had helped Khan’s family make it out when it all came down. Noor had heard she eventually made it to New York. What would she think to know her student had made it back to Paris, as a spy no less?

The car screeched to a halt in front of her, ripping Noor from her reverie. She darted to the side, down the first alley she could find. She ran in hopeless adrenaline. And what little luck had kept her out this long finally ran out. The alley dead-ended.

“Halt!” came the cry behind her. “Nicht bewegen!”

She stopped, out of breath. Her running was over. She raised her arms. She knew what was coming. A German soldier, grease gun trained on her, rounded in front. She turned slowly to the others behind.

“Auf deinen Knien!” one of them shouted, motioning with his gun. She dropped slowly to her knees. They closed in.

Noor Inayat Khan breathed the free, Paris air one more time before the man behind her brought the butt of his gun against her head, and she saw the city no more.

(Image by Chaitra)

We Can Be Heroes

September 25, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in writing, life

It is nothing revolutionary to say that you, often, are your own worst enemy.

I’ve spent the last three weeks on this blog talking about the hero’s journey. Using Beowulf as source material, because I am that particular brand of nerd. And you might think I was done talking about it; I actually thought I was, and yet here we are.

The point of the hero’s journey, the point I was trying to make is that the journey of hero is a journey of self. Again, this is nothing revolutionary. I am certainly not the first to say it. But I was reminded this week of the reason why that’s true. Why we tell stories like this, in this way, about these things. Because we are trying to tell ourselves something.

Stories are one of the ways we process the world. There has been a lot of research done that suggests our brains are wired for stories, that we understand things better when they come in a narrative form. I, personally, would further argue that it’s hardwired into our souls.

Again, it’s nothing revolutionary to say we tell hero stories because we want to be heroes. It’s the simplest, childhood exercise. Pretend. But there’s more to it. We identify with heroes, well-written ones at least. We connect with them. The power of stories is that they tell us we can be heroes.

With time I hope to expand on this further, but every experience with story carries with it the thought, as reader, of “This is me.” We inherently connect with the experience of story. That’s why stories teach so well; they can get in deeper. They can tell us things, show us things. Our sins, our hopes, our fears. How we tend to act in situations. How we ought to.

In the end, every hero story is a human story.

That’s the real reason the monsters make sense, and why the last one, the greatest one, is always us. The last monster a hero must face is themselves. Sometimes, this is general. The folly of man. Often times, it’s personal. A hero cannot be said to have succeeded, truly, until they have overcome themselves.

And the same can be said of us.

Sadly, our lives rarely follow a predictable plot pattern. There is no simple trilogy to point out where we have reached the height of our character development. Like everything else, it’s an ongoing process. The bad news is, after we’ve made a great stride, the next morning we often have to get up and start all over again.
That, of course, is also the good news.

In every hero’s journey template, there is always a point of total despair, where the hero has lost everything and questions ever starting the journey to begin with. This moment, not coincidentally, typically comes right before the final act. In screenwriting terms, it’s usually Plot Point 2. Also, not coincidentally, this is usually where the real ultimate battle takes place. Before the hero can face the final battle, they must first face their own hesitation and doubt.

I like to remember that whenever I’m in the middle of something hard. I like to remember all of this, but that especially. Because it’s the moment when the hero thinks it’s all lost that, in reality, they are a second away from victory. And when I think the same, maybe I’m only a second away. Maybe the moment is only waiting for me.

I don’t know if it’s God or bad writing, but there seems to be a universal truth that you can never have an ultimate victory without first facing this despair. Because overcoming this despair is the victory, the real one. Everything after is gravy.

That’s why we tell ourselves stories. They entertain, certainly, but they also remind. Because we forget. We doubt. We question. We wonder if this monster, this challenge, will be the one we can’t overcome. All heroes wonder that until they realize they have already overcome something greater.

You fight monsters.

You fight bigger monsters.

You fight yourself.

(Image by Chaitra)

The Final Monster

September 18, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in writing

So, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks talking about the Hero’s Journey using an Old English epic poem as my primary example, and I’m guessing you might be wondering when I’ll get to my point. Well, let’s leave Beowulf behind and discuss how the hero story we pull from that story applies to others.

As discussed, the Hero’s Journey can be summed up in three steps:

You fight monsters.
You fight bigger monsters.
You fight yourself.

As we saw in Beowulf, the adversaries a hero fights illustrate the struggle of the hero themselves. This is obvious when we think of modern stories. The villains the hero fights in the beginning are usually weaker than the villains fought later on. They represent a challenge, of course, but not one that would easily overwhelm the hero. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a story. In the same way, if the hero only ever fought one kind of villain, at one level of strength, there wouldn’t be much of a story either. The conflict has to grow as the hero grows. Why then, we might ask, is the third step not “Fight the biggest monster there is”?

Well, to put it simply, that is what it is.

Hero stories represent a most important aspect of stories. It could be argued that every story, at it’s heart, is a hero story, but it’s enough to recognize how the vast majority of our stories are some type of hero’s tale. We keep coming back to them, every generation and culture, because they tell us something about ourselves. About who we are and who we’d like to be. And the truth of hero’s stories is that the worst villain we will ever face is ourselves.

I could go on about this, but I think the best way is simply to go to examples. Because if this was true for just Beowulf, I wouldn’t be writing this. No, this is something I think you’ll find in every hero story, the really good ones at least.

Superheroes, of course, are a rich and easy source for this; not only because they give us such obvious heroes but also because they give us such rich villains.

In “The Matrix”, Neo must escape the virtual world he’s been trapped in since birth and become The One, the savior who will free all of humanity from the prison of the Matrix. Now, granted, the sequels kind of threw everyone for a loop, but if you just focus on the first movie an interesting theme emerges. Neo fights police officers and SWAT teams in his mission to save Morpheus. He also faces off against the evil Agents, lethal programs designed to stop him, and, eventually, he does what no one else had ever down, he defeats one of them, Smith. Agent Smith seems like an obvious final monster. He is stronger and faster than any human and has the ability to move from person to person, so that he is nigh impossible to kill. But, in the actual scope of Neo’s story, Agent Smith is the final adversary, but he’s not the final obstacle.

In order to defeat Smith, Neo has to become the One. The only problem is he has spent most of the movie convinced he isn’t the One. This changes only after he is shot, fatally, by Smith. In dying, and with the help of Trinity, he finally realizes who and what he is and chooses to not be constrained by his limitations. The final obstacle is himself. This is further illustrated by the fact that the final battle with Smith is not even a challenge. Neo easily defeats him. Because Smith wasn’t really the final monster.

Neo fought monsters. He fought bigger monsters. And, finally, he overcame himself.

I haven’t mentioned it before, but the three-step progression matches, naturally, with the three act structure of movies. It also explains why hero stories tend to come in trilogies.

In The Dark Knight Trilogy, Batman faces many villains, the final one of whom is either Bane or Talia Al Ghul depending on your perspective. But as we see in the final movie of the trilogy, and something that is at the heart of the trilogy itself, the true struggle of Batman is what does it mean to be Batman. In the first movie, it’s about saving the city as only Batman can do. In the second it’s about becoming more than a symbol for justice but also a victim of it for the greater good. And last of all, it’s being willing to sacrifice yourself for the sake of others. And, yeah, as you may have noticed, the hero dying at the end, at least in part, is another natural part of the progression.

The journey of Bruce Wayne/Batman as a hero is learning to overcome himself. To embrace his calling as a hero wherever it may take him. And while it does take 3 movies to tell the whole story, we can see the 3 steps within each movie as well. A common way this projection is carried out is by making the final villain a dark version of the hero. Then the final battle is more obviously a battle against the self.

Thus, in “Batman Begins”, Ra’s Al Ghul is Batman’s mentor and teacher, who directly opposes Batman’s chosen path to justice. And in “The Dark Knight”, the Joker is in every way Batman’s opposite, who laughs at his attempts to enact justice in an unjust world. The whole trilogy, in fact, is full of villains who oppose Bruce in ideology as much as in anything else. And in the Matrix trilogy, we have Smith who is pretty much named as Neo’s opposite. In overcoming him, Neo is, thus, overcoming himself.

You fight monsters. You fight bigger monsters. You fight yourself.

Captain America’s doppleganger is the Red Skull, someone who opposes him in ideology as well as strength. To overcome his evil plans, Cap must embrace not only who he is but what being a hero means.

Iron Man’s first villain is Obadiah Stane, a man who represents everything Tony could have been had he not changed. To defeat him, Iron Man has to admit his mistakes.

Thor’s occasional villain is Loki, his adopted brother who, in the first film, throws Thor’s own thirst for vengeance back in his face as he tries to destroy Yotunheim. To stop him, Thor has to sacrifice the chance to return to Earth.

It should be noted that final battles in these stories often don’t involve what we expect, the hero beating the villain, but the villain meeting some other terrible fate. Red Skull disappears when he touches the Cube. Obadiah is killed when Pepper overloads the reactor. Loki lets go and falls into the void between worlds.

Just like with the dragon, whether the hero defeats the final villain is not the point, they have already won a greater battle. The final battle with the villain is often after the great personal conflict is resolved. Because the final battle is never just about defeating the villain.

And before you think this only applies to superheroes, remember that heroes, and their stories, come in all shapes, sizes, and genres.

Kermit the Frog, for instance. In the original Muppet Movie, Kermit sets out from his swamp with dreams of making it big in Hollywood. Along the way, he meets up with all the other Muppets, who he invites to join him, and also comes to the attention of a greedy restaurant owner, Doc Hopper, who wants to use Kermit as the mascot of his new fast food chain. Kermit, naturally, refuses and is pursued by Hopper’s goons through the rest of the movie. There is a final confrontation, wherein Hopper and his hired guns are defeated. But not only is Hopper scared off by Beaker of all people, (or puppets, I guess), but that confrontation comes after the major character development for Kermit.

In the previous sequence, the Muppets are stranded in the desert after their car breaks down, and it looks like they are going to miss their own big shot at fulfilling their dream. Under the weight of all their trials and disappointments, Kermit is ready to call it quits and wanders out into the desert. Where he meets himself. The self who started on this journey, bright-eyed and optimistic, who believed in songs and rainbows. It’s this conversation with himself that reminds Kermit why he started out and that it’s not enough to have people believe in you. You have to believe in yourself.

You fight monsters. You fight bigger monsters. You fight yourself.

So, what does this mean for the story I’m writing, or the story you’re writing?
It’s very natural while writing a story to have an idea of how we think it should end. We walk in with expectations, and those expectations are not necessarily wrong, but what we can see from these stories, and so many others, is that what we expect from a story is not always what we need from the story.

The thing about all these stories is that we think we know how they are going to end. The hero will defeat the monsters until they get to the biggest one and kicks its butt. And that often happens, but more often than not in a way we don’t expect.

We expect Frodo to destroy the Ring. We don’t expect Gollum to steal it at the last moment and fall into the fire. We expect Simba to defeat Scar. We don’t expect him to spare him only for the hyenas to finish the job. We expect Luke to kill the Emperor. We don’t expect him to refuse to and, by doing so, inspire Darth Vader to do it. We expect Katniss to finally kill President Snow. We don’t expect her to shoot Coin.

We expect Beowulf to kill the dragon. We don’t expect what actually happens.

And that’s the point of the story. The final monster is never the monster. The true journey of a hero is never about defeating all the monsters. That may happen, of course, but it’s not the true purpose.

You can write a story where that doesn’t happen, where defeating the bad guy is just about defeating the bad guy, but how good would it be, really? In the end, if we want to write the best stories we can, and I think we have enough examples to prove it, then we must realize what these stories are really about. What all stories might just be about.

You fight monsters. You fight bigger monsters. You fight yourself.

(Image by Chaitra)

Heroes and Monsters, pt. 2

September 11, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in writing

In last week’s post, I talked about the Hero’s Journey and introduced a structure for it that I got from a lecture J.R.R. Tolkien gave on Beowulf. The basic structure of which is three steps:

You fight monsters.
You fight bigger monsters.
You fight yourself.

And, now, I’d like to go into what I mean by that.

One of the criticisms scholars of Tolkien’s day had about Beowulf was that the monsters didn’t fit the story, not all of them. At first, Beowulf fights Grendel, a hideous beast who is apparently the demon offspring of Cain. Then Beowulf fights Grendel’s mother, the source of the evil that plagued the land and a sorceress. Then, at last, Beowulf fights a dragon.

The critics said that the last monster especially felt out-of-place. Not that dragons are altogether a logical thing, but that the dragon’s presence felt like an add-on, like you have to have a final boss and the only thing more intimidating that the storytellers could think of was a dragon. After all, Beowulf (spoiler alert) dies in the final battle. If he’d already defeated Grendel and his mother, what else could challenge him? This is further compounded by the time change that comes before the last bit of the story. Grendel and Grendel’s mother are fought by a young Beowulf and the dragon when Beowulf is much older. Why the jump? Why skip decades of story just to tell us how the warrior slew a dragon? It feels disjointed.

But Tolkien points out that the nature of the monsters are neither disjointed nor illogical. Each one serves a purpose that is further defined by the change in time. Grendel is a traditional monster, almost a carbon copy to Odysseus’ Cyclops, who eats men and generally befouls the land. Beowulf defeats him with brute strength. Grendel’s mother is a more nefarious villain and one Beowulf can’t defeat with brute strength alone. They are both monstrous but in ways that challenge the hero’s skill differently and force him to become stronger.

Then there’s the dragon, which, on the surface, feels like the only thing left whose ass Beowulf has not kicked, but, naturally, there’s more to it than that. This is where the selection of the monster becomes significant. A dragon is no accident, neither is the 50 year time gap in the story.

Dragons are pop culture icons now, but in practically every ancient mythology they are the representations of greed. Dragons steal and horde wealth. In many stories, they sleep on a bed of gold and often are drawn to wealth. Think Smaug in the Hobbit. Thus fighting and, hopefully, slaying a dragon tends to have an inherent moral. The moral of Beowulf’s dragon fight is also why it has to be done at a later time than the other monsters.

Beowulf fights two great monsters when he is a young man. It’s because of these amazing victories that Beowulf wins great acclaim and becomes king, and then… Nothing happens. For 50 years. We’re not told about other great victories or other monsters that Beowulf fights. He’s a good and wise king who rewards his thanes, but it seems there have been no major adventures since the first one. And then a dragon shows up. And Beowulf, naturally, goes out to fight it. He’s the monster slayer. There has been at least one if not two generations who have grown up with the stories of their king’s prowess. So Beowulf goes to do what he does, and he’s defeated. His first attempt fails, and his knights flee, all except one.

Dragons are symbols of greed, avarice, of hoarding things that aren’t meant to be hoarded. Beowulf has been resting on his laurels for half a century. If he has fought other battles, they have been against men, and what are mere mortals to someone who has wrestled giants? He has won no more acclaim than what he started out with. Beowulf, whether he meant to or not, has gotten soft.

And that’s why it’s significant not only that it is a dragon that is the final monster, but that he faces it many years after his first victories. If Beowulf had faced the dragon right after Grendel’s mother, the battle would likely have gone differently, but then the story would be different. And that’s the point. That’s why the final monster has to be a dragon. Because the final monster is never just a dragon.

What Beowulf fights is not really a fire-breathing lizard. We know this, because he doesn’t win. Every other monster, Beowulf defeated solo. The dragon is ultimately defeated only with the help of his one remaining warrior, Wiglaf. Beowulf dies in the struggle, which seems, on the surface, to be a bad ending to the story. And yet that’s the point of the story. Because what Beowulf was fighting was more than a dragon.

Dragons are symbols of avarice, of human sin, therefore defeating them is about more than slaying the beast, it’s about slaying the sin of man. Beowulf fights a dragon but what he is really fighting is greed itself. The dragon initially attacks because part of his horde is stolen. So Beowulf is fighting the greed of man that invites evils like this to the land. But he is also fighting his own greed.

He has sat in court for decades. He has won allies by his fame and, likely, his accumulated wealth. He has built a reputation on his heroics. None of which prepare him for this battle. He has built a kingdom of loyal warriors. And yet, when it comes to it, who is by his side? All of his friends and retainers, all of his loyal allies bought with gold and glory, all leave him alone. The only one left is one loyal warrior. It’s clear that Beowulf’s hoarded glory, his previous victories, means nothing at the last. When it really counts, only loyalty and courage can be counted on.

The dragon is defeated but at the cost of Beowulf’s life. This is also significant, and I’ll get into it later. Beowulf is defeated, but, at the same time, Beowulf is victorious.

Every monster forces Beowulf to become more. Stronger than Grendel, craftier than Grendel’s mother, but he is not better than a dragon. Because what he was fighting wasn’t a dragon. He doesn’t kill the dragon like the other monsters, but he has defeated a greater monster. Himself.

And thus, we have the structure of the hero’s journey.

You fight monsters.
You fight bigger monsters.
You fight yourself.

And here. I’ve run out of space again. Now that, I think, I’ve done a good job explaining the basic structure, in part 3, (because of course there’s a part 3), I’ll explain more how this applies to other stories and story building.

Stay tuned.

(Image by Chaitra)

Heroes and Monsters, pt. 1

September 04, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in writing

I recently posted some of my fiction, and I was so pleased by people’s reaction that it got me thinking about sharing more of my writing and my writing process. I’ve always been fascinated by the creative process and, as a writer in general and a fiction writer specifically, by the process that goes into crafting stories. Dialogue and setting and plot and characterization, and, just like my fiction, though I am using it daily, I now see that I haven’t shared a lot of it. Let’s rectify that, shall we?

One of the many things that has always fascinated me about fiction is that it often feels less like I’m making it up as I go and more like I’m discovering something that was there all along. It’s the same when you talk about the process. All these elements feel less like things we have come to associate with story and more like the way stories have always been meant to be. None, perhaps more so, than the Hero’s Journey.

A lot. A LOT has been written on the Hero’s Journey. Joseph Campbell’s work with Monomyth is certainly the most well-known. In his book, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, he maps out the basic narrative pattern of just about every story out there and actually boils it down into seventeen stages in three phases. Others have made similar patterns or further condensed Campbell’s into a dozen or so steps, but Campbell’s work is generally considered to be the most significant. (If you are not altogether interested in reading a 400-page treatise on the nature of Story, don’t worry, you can learn a lot from the Wikipedia page.)

But what’s interesting about monomyth is that it wasn’t solely the product of Campbell. He didn’t sit down and think up what would be a really good structure for a hero’s story. Instead, he looked at just about every story out there and picked out the similarities. Stories from different eras and cultures and languages, all of which seemed to follow a similar structure.

This is what I mean that writing often feels more like discovering than creating, like this is what it’s supposed to look like. That’s why, as a writer, it is so beneficial to reference these story structures. Because as much as I’d like to think I’m innovative and unique, chances are I haven’t reinvented the wheel, and why should I?

That’s why whenever I’m seriously considering a story, or more often whenever I hit a wall while writing one, I’ll check my hero’s journey. Am I hitting the right points? Does the shape of the story make sense? Is the reason I can’t go on because I’ve missed a step or I’ve been trying to take the wrong one?

I can’t enumerate the number of times this has saved my story. In fact it recently helped me on the book I posted about, Fatales.

While Campbell’s Hero’s Journey and it’s related summaries are the go-to for story structure, there are others out there, and I find myself coming back to one in particular that I got from J.R.R. Tolkien in a lecture he gave on Beowulf. (Yeah, we’re going to get academic, so, strap in, kids!)

In “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics”, Tolkien comes to the defense of the Old English poem Beowulf, which some of you may have had to read back in high school and some of you probably don’t have pleasant memories about it. I, for one, could write an entire essay on Tolkien’s essay, but I’m willing to bet you’re not interested. Unless you are, in which case, we should talk. But seriously don’t get me started. We will be here all day.

In short, many of the academics of Tolkien’s day criticized Beowulf’s story structure, pointing to, among other things, it’s villains. In the story, Beowulf fights the monster Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and then a dragon. The criticism was that the build from one to the other doesn’t make sense, but the point Tolkien makes is that the monsters are what make the story, and I have to agree. Beowulf is what it is because of who the hero fights, and the build from one to the other not only makes sense for the story but for all hero stories.

It’s no stretch to say that hero stories are defined by their villains, but the real truth is that hero stories are defined by the conflict the hero faces in fighting the villains. Heroes don’t fight dragons because they need to. Dragons don’t exist, therefore dragons or what happens when we fight dragons must mean something else. Stories are metaphors, in one degree or another. Therefore the choice of monster teaches as much as, if not more than, the choice of hero. And it’s this that I often find myself coming back to. When I’m having difficulty with a story, the answer could easily be that I haven’t chosen my monster correctly.

Again, I could go on, and should, and will, but I find myself running out of room. So, that’ll have to wait for part. But, so you don’t feel robbed, and as a little food for thought, in short, the structure of any hero story, or the really good ones at least, can be boiled down to three steps:

You fight monsters.
You fight bigger monsters
You fight yourself.

Stay tuned next week as I dive deeper into this. Don't worry, I have examples.

(Image by Chaitra)

Gratitude

August 28, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in life, writing

I had a lot of things I was thinking about writing about this week.

I posted some of my fiction a couple of weeks ago. It was something I had decided to do after realizing that I talk a lot about writing fiction, especially in November, but I’d never really shown anyone my fiction. It was, understandably, a very anxiety-heavy choice. There’s always a risk when putting what you create out into the world. Because even the simplest pieces will contain some piece of you, so what people think of it, how they react to it, can have a direct effect on you. Writing has always been deeply personal for me, but none more so than my fiction. Maybe that’s why I had never shown it.

But I did, and I was pleasantly, exuberantly, surprised by people’s reaction. Enough that I do intend to post more. Don’t worry, there’s much more to the story, and I’m eager to share it. I’m also eager to share the process behind it. I’ve talked about writing, but now having a bit of mine out there really makes me want to dig into the craft, itself. So, stay tuned.

For now, though, I feel like I should just say: Thank you.

To say it’s been a rough few years is an understatement as well as grossly inaccurate. There were rough parts, rougher than anything I have previously experienced, and, in many ways, I’m still carrying around the scars. There were also surprising parts and good parts and things I learned, often through the rough stuff, that grew me in ways I never knew I was capable of. And it all got me here, I know.

Last week I posted about Home. It’s something I’ve talked about before, and it really felt like the right time to talk about it again, but I was hesitant. Not so much to put it out there, but what would happen when I did. Not that people would react badly to it, either, but that something else would.

I’ve long since learned that when you make a decision, especially a big one, when you make a declaration, something is going to come along and test your resolve.

I’ve written about Home twice, and both times I was fairly confident in my understanding of it, and both times I was kind of wrong. Maybe not wrong, but I couldn’t see what was coming. I couldn’t see how it would all get pulled out from under me.

So, naturally, I was a little anxious about posting again. Like that was just asking for trouble. After I did, I spent most of last week looking over my shoulder, certain that God was going to drop the hammer. I had been foolish enough to tag another new place with the word “Home”, and, in doing so, I was sure I had lit the fuse on the inevitable disappointment.

And then it came, on Friday, naturally. Only, nothing happened. Not really. I just had this feeling for a good bit of the day that I was messing it all up. I couldn’t point to any one thing; I just knew I was. I was messing this up, and it was all going to blow up in my face.

Anxiety and I are not strangers, of course, so I should have known. Still, it took me a little too long to realize what was happening. Nothing had happened, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t feel like something had. I didn’t need a real world trigger; I had the anxiety primed and ready to go. Once I realized that’s all it was, though, just the feeling, that didn’t make it go away. The only thing that did was me sitting in my car telling myself, “You’re doing okay. You’re doing okay. You’re doing okay.”

And I realized that was the test. The thing I had been looking out for, the challenge that was going to come up now that I had put “Home” out into the universe, it was me. It wasn’t any one thing. It wasn’t any outside obstacle. It was my own fear, my own state of mind that told me I had made a mistake.

Whenever you make a decision, something is going to come along and test your resolve. Sometimes, that thing is you. That makes sense to me, precisely because I write fiction. In stories, the hero’s journey is: you fight monsters, you fight bigger monsters, you fight yourself. (Remind me to expand on that later.) The greatest thing standing in the way of you accomplishing your goals is your own sense that you can’t do it.

And how do you defeat that? Gratitude.

Cliche, maybe, but, well, you know me and cliches. But I realized over the weekend that the thing that was going to get me through this was just that. Gratitude.

It’s easy, too easy, to look for validation outside. For something to tell us that we are on the right track, or even that we are on the wrong one. And those things exist, milestones, warning signs, but we can just as easily misread them. I can ask God for a sign that I’m doing right and God might just send it to me, but if I’m convinced I’m doing wrong, then I might just miss it.

Thus, gratitude. It’s what allows you to see the signs. If I focus on what I’m not doing, I’ll constantly feel like a failure. (That’s not even really an “if”. I have lived that for a good bit of my life.) But gratitude forces me to see what I am doing. Not looking for what I think I’m missing, but recognizing what I already have. And I have so much.

Like a place to live and a job. Like a sense of belonging. Like someone who wants me here. Like a sense of possibility. Like new projects that I kind of can’t believe I get to do. Like my fiction, out there in the world. Like people who like my fiction. Like a purpose.

And the more I look, the more the list grows, and the more I know that’s the thing that’s going to keep me going, that’s going to help me convince myself that I am right where I need to be.

It feels too simple, I’ll admit. And it hasn’t so much made it easier, but I’m finding it’s making it possible. More than that, it’s just making me feel a whole lot better with where my life is, and it’s making me feel like I can face whatever comes next, whether challenge or opportunity.

Maybe that’s all we’ve ever needed to face this. Maybe when we understand what we have, then we’ll actually learn how to pursue what we want. Maybe when we learn to be grateful, we won’t constantly be checking the door, wondering when it’s all going to walk out on us.

For now, though, I simply want to sit in the gratitude. It’s a nice place to sit. So to all the opportunities in my life, to all the possibilities, to all of the people I have, to all of the people I love, to all of you:

Thank you.

(Image by Chaitra)

Home Pt. Three

August 21, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in life

The first thing I ever wrote about on this blog was Home. It seemed appropriate, for a number of reasons. I had recently moved to a new place and was learning all the ways it takes to actually settle into an entirely new environment. At the same time, I was stepping into another new place. This blog, and with it dreams, aspirations and challenges.

A year ago, I wrote about Home again, and, again, it seemed appropriate, this time for reasons I could never have even guessed. I felt like I was still trying to find my feet in that place, and I was confident I was on the verge of something. I was, but not what I thought. Two months later, I was out of there. On to a new place and new challenges and, oh, so much baggage.

And here I am again, writing on this subject that I am, again, learning is so much bigger and deeper and stranger than I ever thought. Again I am in a new place. Again I am stepping into new challenges. In many ways it feels the same, but I know it’s different.

I’m different.

This past weekend was my birthday. To celebrate, my parents came into town. They had helped me move only 6 or so weeks ago, so it wasn’t like they’d been away for very long, but it was still very nice and very needed for all of us.

2017 has already been, well, a hell of a year, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to let up anytime soon. For my family, in particular, it is going to be very interesting because, by the end of it, none of us will be in the same place we were at the start of it.

My sister got married in June and moved to El Paso.

My Dad retired this summer and my parents are moving to Ukraine in September.

My brother is moving his family to Alaska in October.

And I’m here.

There was a time when we all lived within driving distance of each other, and, now, we’re not even going to be in the same time zones. Home, it seems, is something every one of us is going to have to work out.

I know it’s something I’m going to have to. Like I said, this feels very familiar. New city. New place to live. New dreams. New challenges. I’ve been here before, and there’s a part of me ready to be worried about that. I can feel it, when I wake up in the morning. There’s a version of me ready to panic like it’s Atlanta all over again. And yet there’s another part.

I’ve been here before. I’ve moved across the country, without a place to stay or job. And yet, already, I’m doing miles better than I was even a year ago. I have a job, a good one. I have a place to stay, a good one. But that’s not the reason I haven’t panicked yet, or why I don’t think I will.

I have been here before. But I’m not me anymore. I’m not who I was the first time I went through this because I went through this already. I’ve changed, and that means, no matter how familiar, this won’t be the same, which gives me hope. Because it means it doesn’t have to end the same way.

My parents came to visit, so, of course, I had to show them the city, which was a little hard because I’m only just discovering it myself. But I had some help. And it ended up being one of the best birthdays I’ve had in as long as I can remember. And it wasn’t because of any one thing, though there was a lot of good stuff. It was me.

I don’t know when exactly it hit me. Maybe at dinner on Friday night, at a table with people I really love, sharing a really good dessert. Maybe it was Saturday afternoon when I got to show my parents the best burger in town, which, coincidentally, is only a block from my apartment. Then again, maybe it was today, when I got my first taste of “Lake Life” and finally understood what everyone was talking about. Maybe it was all of it. Maybe this weekend was just a constant reminder of something I had been feeling since I got here but didn’t want to voice because it felt too soon;, it felt like jinxing it. But when I was walking across the Stone Arch Bridge and looking out at St. Anthony Falls, with a belly full of Izzy’s Ice Cream, (both a recommendation from the best person I know), I felt it.

And even as I say that, I know it was just as much what I didn’t feel. What I’ve felt too often over the past few years. The sinking feeling that if I don’t keep clawing my way through, this place was going to reject me, that my feet didn’t belong where I was standing. I didn’t feel that at all.

Instead I felt something I was almost sure I had lost, never to be found again. It was an inkling, after all I had only just started, but behind it was the hope, the assurance, that it was there. A seed, even now, pushing up through the dirt, ready to sprout at any moment.

The feeling that I was Home.

In a place I could call Home.

With people who wanted me there.

And I didn’t have to fight for it. I had it already, and, if I wanted, it could be truer everyday.

It’s only starting, of course. Even now, that other part of me is warning caution. I’ve been burned before.

But already I feel like I’ve turned a corner. Before even now. This weekend was just a good time to finally realize.

For however long. For now. I’m home.

Fatales - Part 1

August 14, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in writing, fiction

So, here it is. As promised. There's so much I'd like to tell you about this novel, but I think the best thing, for now, is to let the prose speak for itself. There'll be time for the process later. I just hope you enjoy it. For some context, here's the book synopsis:

Fatales

She waited. She knew how to wait. Experience had taught her half the game was waiting. It wasn’t as cold as she had expected. Though there was the definite tinge of chill on the nose, the winter was nearly as mild as in London. She had been bothered about the coat. Circumstances required something drab, inconspicuous. Fur, naturally, would have been out of the question. She shouldn’t stand out, and the ratty overcoat they had sent her with was as unobtrusive as you could imagine. She looked nearly as beaten down as the rest of the populace. She turned up the collar to complete the image more than block the cold. She hunched her shoulders and quickened her pace just enough as she had walked to the rendezvous. The coat was more than adequate. In retrospect, however, she should’ve brought a better hat. But this was a quick mission. In and out. And the weather wasn’t what she was worried about.

Despite how long she’d been at this business, she felt ill-prepared and with good reason. She knew how to think on her feet, but she wasn’t used to the quick ones. It had to be quick, though, and circumstances seemed to indicate that it had to be her. So she waited. She took another walk around the block. To stretch her leg and because standing around would draw attention, especially with the SS patrolling after dark. They were cutting it close to curfew, but, again, quick. It had to be tonight.

The city was quiet, in that way Virginia had come to recognize. There was no peace to it. It was a muzzled, cowed kind of quiet. The sort that blanketed every city the Nazis had taken. She had seen it, too many times in too many places. Paris, Lyon, like Arnhem, streets that you knew once bustled with laughter, music, or even just noise, now smothered in fearful silence under the long, German shadow.

She’d barely had time to prepare. Almost none at all. One minute she’s headed to her flat, groceries in hand, thanking about a quiet evening to herself, so rare in a city like London, in days like this. Then she turns the corner and finds Atkins at her door, with that look Virginia knew all too well. It wasn’t her habit, short notice and all. It wasn’t anyone’s habit, but, then again, Vera hadn’t needed to ask. The answer was always yes.

If this were a normal operation, she would’ve had more on her. As it stood, it was the hat, coat, and some identification that would pass if she got stopped. And a bit of cash, though they really should have sent her with something more substantial. The Dutch Resistance were doing them a huge favor. Lord knows they could use whatever help they could get.

Everywhere the signs sat in the windows, right next to the hideous red banners with their white circles and hateful symbols. One would expect stores to advertise what they had, not what they didn’t. The rationing was no surprise. She had seen it in Lyon. The Bosch took whatever they could get their hands on, and everyone else could starve. So Arnhem sat, silent and hungry. A city that couldn’t even wave it’s own flag.

Virginia finished a loop of the block and made it back to the theater with time to spare. She caught a few strings of the finale as she passed casually in front of the doors to the concert hall. N Section had been clear. The Dutch had given the message to their best, and they’d meet after the show. Some SS colonel must be a fan, Virginia thought, how else could the company still afford to have performances like this? They sounded good, too. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard an orchestra and so let herself linger for a moment and listen.

The score ended, crescendo, silence, then uproarious applause. Virginia took up position to the side just as the doors opened and the audience poured into the night. She let the crowd spill a bit before stepping out and winding her way amongst them expertly, letting the press guide her down the street. Then, just as expertly, she slipped away into the alley that ran down the side of the concert hall.

The crowd continued to move down the street, talking, discussing the performance, laughing even. An almost alien amount of noise compared to the silence of the city. They were allowing themselves, perhaps, a moment to forget, to let the magic of the show linger on them just a bit longer, before they dispersed into the suffocating silence of the night.

Virginia turned her back to the noise and continued down the alley towards the far end, where it met the little lane that ran behind the theater. She spied the stage door, slowed, and halted in a shadow. A couple made their way down the back lane, hands held in each other’s but silent, buttoned up like the rest of the city. On their way home before curfew, no time to waste taking in the night. Virginia gave them a glance then focused on the back of the theater. She settled herself further into the shadow. She waited.

The couple passed on by. The noise of the crowd out front slowly died away. Silence once again swallowed the city. Some time passed, then the stage door opened, spilling light into the dark, noise into the silence. Virginia stood further back still and watched as people stepped out from the light, bundled up, some clutching cases cautiously, some not even lucky enough to have cases. They said little, a short acknowledgement here, a nod there, and most hurried off to make curfew. A few lingered, pacing slowly in the light of the doorway. Waiting. Virginia saw what for, as a few minutes later, a line of nearly identical girls emerged before the doors were shut again.

They buttoned coats and pulled on hats, but you could tell from their slender build, perfect posture, and the little buns atop their heads. The ballerinas mingled for a minute, naturally giddy from the energy of the performance. The girls stretched and twirled their flats in their hands as they exchanged smiles and congratulations. Another alien sound in the dark city: the delight of children. But even this didn’t last, and soon they began to split off into twos and threes, pairing with the few remaining adults who gathered them up and hastened them towards home. One, small and thin even for a ballerina, remained behind.

“Audrey?” another dancer called, motioning for her to join her group. The smaller one shook her head and pointed up the alley past Virginia, still unseen in the shadow. The little one seemed to indicate this was the shorter way home for her. Her fellow dancers nodded and waved to her, adding, “Tot ziens!”

“Goedenacht,” Audrey responded with a wave of her own. She waited until her friends were far enough down the lane, watching as they and their laughter disappeared into the night, then turned herself and seemed to start up the alley, but she only took a few steps before glancing behind her. Virginia hesitated, for a moment, wondering about emerging from the darkness. After a breath, she stepped out, slowly, so as not to startle the girl too much.

“Goedeavond,” Virginia said. Her Dutch was rusty, but she only needed enough to make a confirmation. The girl gave a little start at her emergence before composing herself.

“Goedeavond,” she answered with a dancer’s curtsy. She shook a little, from more than the cold, Virginia guessed.

“Dat was geweldig dansen,” Virginia went on, and illumination dawned in the girl’s eyes.

“We doen ons best,” the little ballerina replied with a knowing nod.

“Only wish I could have seen it,” Virginia added, in English this time. The girl gave another start at the change, then smiled. Her nervousness faded.

“Thank you,” Audrey said, in English, and curtsied again. With a quick glance up the alley, she reached into her flats, dangling from her fingers by their strings, and pulled out a slip of paper, neatly folded and stuffed beneath the insole. With another glance, she handed it to Virginia. The woman took it from the child and unfolded it. There wasn’t much to it, of course, but she gave it a quick scan, enough to memorize its contents in case she had to destroy it.

The woman had to admit, she hadn’t expected someone so young. They come in all shapes and sizes these days, she reminded herself, and she of all people shouldn’t be surprised. Still, it was hard not to consider the image of this littlest of girls standing against Hitler. There wasn’t much time, but even Virginia couldn’t contain her curiosity.

“Is this your first time?” she asked.

Audrey shook her head, and Virginia couldn’t help but marvel, again, at how this one could have found herself here. Then again, one could easily ask that of Virginia, as so many had. All shapes and sizes, she reminded herself once more.

“Are you ever afraid?” she asked the girl, uncharacteristically conversational for Virginia, as she folded the message up.

The girl smiled, weakly. “I’m too hungry to be afraid, madam.” Virginia had to smile back. For a moment, it was just them, too of the most unlikely standing against a world on fire.

A shiver passed through the woman, bringing her attention back to matters at hand. Virginia gave a glance to either end of the alley. The night suddenly felt colder. It was dark enough and with only the girl here, she figured she could risk it. Virginia reached down and hiked up her skirt. The girl’s eyes went wide when she saw it, when she realized. Yes, Cuthbert had that effect on people, though Virginia was hardly in the habit of introducing him to anyone. Still, the message was vital, or else Atkins wouldn’t have sent her, and there was one surefire way to get it out undetected.

Virginia’s skirt rose to reveal her left leg, or what stood in for it. Most people couldn’t tell, not from what one could normally see between shoe and skirt. But further up, where the prosthesis met her knee, it was hard not to stare. She tucked the folded message into the top, between the cup and her stump sock. When she looked up, Audrey’s eyes were saucers. Seeing that she had been caught gaping, the girl quickly looked away in embarrassment. Virginia gave her a reassuring smile.

“It takes all kinds, doesn’t it, Audrey?” she said. The girl nodded in wonderment. “Do me a favor,” Virginia added as she let the skirt drop back into place. “Get home safe. The patrols will be out at this hour.”

The girl beamed proudly. “Oh, don’t worry about me, madam,” she said with a shake of her head. “They never stop me.”

Virginia smiled again at the girl’s fortitude, which far outsized the girl herself. Defiant, even while starving. And a thought suddenly occurred to her.

“Wait,” Virginia added. She was pressed for time, but she couldn’t let her leave. Not without something to take home. Virginia reached into her pockets and fished out the stack of bank notes they’d sent her with. She took half; she’d save the rest for her transportation. Folding up the bills tightly, she placed them into Audrey’s hand. They said nothing, letting the act speak for itself. Virginia nodded. The girl nodded in turn and stuffed the bills into her flats.

“Goedenacht,” Virginia whispered.

“Goedenacht,” Audrey replied and walked away without another word.

Virginia gave the girl a head start before following her to the end of the alley. She stood in another shadow and watched the dancer go up the street, quickening her pace. Suddenly, Virginia spied a pair of SS patrolmen emerging from a side street. They turned and immediately spotted Audrey as she passed by on the opposite side. Virginia pulled back, her pulse quickening as she watched them approach the little ballerina.

They called out to her in German. The girl stopped, turning politely towards them, hands folded in front of her. They were too far away for Virginia to catch more than snippets of what they were saying, but they repeated their question in Dutch. Audrey nodded in understanding, replied, and pointed back to the theater as she innocently held up her flats. This seemed to impress the guards. They made a motion with their hands, and Audrey complied, giving a little twirl. The guards clapped for her. She gave a curtsy. And just like that, the two SS waved and sent her on her way, adding for her to get home quickly.

Virginia almost couldn’t believe it. She had feared the worst, of course. The Dutch Resistance really had sent their best. She watched the SS as they moved on before turning a corner, continuing their patrol. And up the street, she spied Audrey dashing off into the night.

Time for her to do the same. The boat was waiting. If all went according to the plan, quick as it had been put together, she’d be back to London before tomorrow evening. She reflexively rubbed her left knee. She got what she came for. Vera would be pleased. For the mission more than the message, Virginia realized as she remembered what it said. She allowed herself the briefest moment to ponder it’s meaning and implications before reminding herself it wasn’t in her purview. She had done her job, now on to the next one.

She gathered the coat about her and took on the hunch again. Then, with a quick adjustment to Cuthbert, Virginia Hall stepped out of the alley and disappeared into the night.

(Image by Chaitra)

Half of Me

August 07, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in life, writing

I’ve been hiding.

The thing about being on the internet. Not even so much as a blogger or a brand or a content maker, just existing on the internet involves some level of filtering. And, no, I’m not talking Instagram. The thing about social media is that it allows us to control, to some degree, what about us is projected. It’s entirely possible to have social media profiles and not really add anything, just consume. In which case, no one would really know that much about you except what you followed. In the same way, it’s entirely possible to project a false image. Something that is called “you” but entirely fabricated.

But even if you aren’t projecting a false image or projecting nothing at all, if you are being yourself, you are only being a certain amount of yourself. Social media is a window. Through it we let people see parts of our lives but only parts. Highlights, lowlights, the everyday, and the once-in-a-lifetime. Still, there is always something not seen. The moments between posts, what didn’t feel post-worthy, what we didn’t feel like sharing, or, just as likely, what we neglected to share at all.

Hannah Brencher posted something on Facebook this week that reminded me about the nature of our relationship with social media. We’re always asking the question: What is too much? The articles about the dangers of social media are a dime a dozen. And while there’s something to be said about finding validation in this, very rarely do we ask the more important question: How do we do it right? Which is to say: What are coming here for anyway?

Social media, and by extension the Internet, is a vessel. From it we can draw all sorts of things to feed us, and we can contribute all sorts of things, as well. But, ultimately, it’s just a vessel. We cannot draw anything out of it that we didn’t put in. So what we consume is directly tied to what we contribute, which means if we want it to be a positive influence instead of a negative one, then we need to start putting positive things into it.

Which brings me to the hiding.

Boundaries are good. Let me just put that out there. There’s always going to be a healthy limit, on how much we consume and how much we contribute. And there are so many moments in life that don’t need to be shared, they just need to be enjoyed. Conversations, food, people. There are times when you will, hopefully, completely forget about capturing the moment in favor of living it.

At the same time, if we are going to be out here, we should be ourselves. There is value in vulnerability, in showing people who we are so that they can know they are not alone and so we can know that we are worth sharing. And, if we’re not careful, we’ll let ourselves hide behind our boundaries out of fear instead of responsibility.

And I’ve been hiding. I’ve been hiding a big part of myself, and it’s so weird to say because it’s a part people know about. I talk about it constantly. It’s a major aspect of who I am as a creative, as a person. And yet very few people have actually seen it.

My fiction.

I write fiction. A lot. One of my claims to fame, if I even have some, is #NaNoWriMo, how I’ve completed it five years in a row, which means I’ve written five different novels. Last year, I wrote a whole novel in a week; fan fiction even, and started a second some months ago. Fiction is my life. If I could describe myself as any kind of writer, it would be a fiction writer.

And yet I realized this week that I could probably count on two hands the number of people who have actually read any of my fiction. All the stories I’ve written, all the novels, (and those above are just the ones I’ve shared on social media), none of them have really seen the light of day. Of course, I’m not published, so it’s not too surprising.

Except here I am every week posting on my website.

Except last year I published a book, a very personal project.

Except I’m posting on Instagram every day.

Somehow, I’ve turned into a non-fiction writer. And that’s not really a bad thing. All of this stretches me as a writer. In some ways, it’s easier to make up a story than to talk about your own. This is part of me, as a writer and a person. But there’s another part of me that I haven’t really shared. Possibly the greater part. I’ve been hiding half of me, maybe more.

I’ve talked about it. I’m not ashamed of it. But I haven’t put it out there.

And there’s lots of excuses I could throw at that. I could publish. There are some projects I’m really considering for that, but they aren’t there yet. And I don’t really have a platform for it, otherwise. Except I do. This is a blog. It’s always been more non-fiction, but it’s also been about sharing who I am. And this is who I am.

The last excuse, of course, is the one that keeps me silent far too often: Who would actually want it? Well, I won’t know until I put it out there, will I?

So, long story short, I’m not going to hide anymore. If I’m going to talk about it, I better start showing it to you. Who knows? It might actually give me the push to really publish. But, if nothing else, it means someone will get to read my fiction. Maybe a lot of people, or maybe just the right people.

So, stay tuned, as next week, I hope to show a bit of the novel I’m currently working on. I hope you like it.

(Image by Chaitra)

Lay 'em Down

July 31, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in life

I had a whole other blog post, in my head, about this. About learning to set things down. About learning to forgive yourself. About realizing shame has never served us. But halfway through writing it, I realized I couldn’t. Well, I could, but I didn’t want to. Not really.

I’ve written before, many times, about all of this, and, somehow, I just couldn’t give another rehashed version of the thing I’m still learning how to do.

Lay it all down.

I almost rear-ended a guy last week. It was not as bad as it sounds. I just hit my brakes a little too late, and, other than a raised heart rate, it wasn’t anything serious, but, in the moment, it felt serious. It felt as bad as it would have had I hit him. In fact, I felt bad that it was “almost.” Where someone else might be relieved that it had only been almost, I felt guilty that it got so close.

This is nothing new, of course. I’ve been beating myself up for real and perceived mistakes most of my life. Like I said, this isn’t the first time I’ve talked about this.

But sitting in my car, breathing hard as I continued driving, safely, I realized what I was doing. More than that, I saw that it wasn’t going to stop any time soon. I was probably going to beat myself up about this for at least a week. I’d get super nervous every time I got in the car, reminding myself how I almost got in a wreck. I’d drive overly cautiously as some kind of recompense for an accident that didn’t happen. I knew I would feel like this, and I knew I didn’t want to.

Guilt is such background noise to me that even when I have nothing to feel guilty about, I can’t help but look around and wonder: “Is there something I’m forgetting?” It’s like I don’t know how not to. No, not like. I actually don’t know how not to.

But, it’s like I said, nothing new. Nothing I want to rehash any more, because I’m just done. I’m done talking about it like I don’t know what to do with it.

I don’t want to talk about the darkness anymore. I want to turn on the light.

Now, I’m no expert. I struggle with this constantly, and chances are I will wake up the next morning and forget to do this. I will have to start all over. Well, so be it. I’m just figuring this out, but maybe if I try to tell you how to do it, I’ll figure it out for myself.

There’s a reason every metaphor and parable, every other word out Jesus’s mouth tells us to lay our burdens down. One, because they are burdens, and, two, because they won’t go away unless we let them.

So often we are looking for a reason why we don’t have to think this way. An argument as to why we are allowed to feel good about ourselves. And all that is good, up to a point. But I can tell you, in the end, it won’t really help. You can’t argue yourself out of it. Mostly because you can’t argue with anxiety. It knows how to sound like truth.

There are no arguments. Not any that you will believe when you’re really down, anyways. If there were, we would have figured them out, and, well, we wouldn’t still be talking about this. You’re not going to plead your case, because you’re not on trial.

That’s the kicker. The part I’ve never, so far, been very good at. You don’t need a reason. You don’t need to prove that you’re good enough to walk around without the sinking feeling that you’re not. You’ll never graduate from the burden. You have to let it go. Not because you deserve to, not because you’ve gone long enough with it, not because you’ve earned the right. You have to let it go because you choose to let it go.

If you want to feel better about yourself, you have to choose to. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to operate without that feeling. It doesn’t matter that you don’t know how to like yourself. You’ll learn, but you can’t start until you choose to.

I wish, so much, that I could tell you how it works. How to strip it all off like a wet shirt and start feeling free. I wish I could talk to you from the other side of this, but I’m in the middle. I’m split, a lot of the time, between the old part that thinks I can’t feel any other way and the new part that knows that there’s something so beyond that. I wish I could tell you how to pull the steering wheel away from the old, but there are days I still look at the new with a suspicious gaze. “Who are you? Are you sure you’re allowed to be here?”

I’m learning. I’m trying. After my “almost”, I could feel the guilt rising, but I stopped. I stopped and reminded myself that nothing had happened. It was, at worst, an honest mistake, and how thankful I can be that nothing serious happened. It took effort. Real effort, but I didn’t feel guilty. I don’t, and I know I still would, even now, if I hadn’t stopped myself right then.

Sometimes, if you catch them when they’re just starting, you can stop the thoughts before they really get going. It’s not much, but it’s a start.

I wish, sometimes, things were a little more literal. That our baggage looked like baggage. That we could see and feel it. If we could, who wouldn’t set the whole thing down? Who would ever bother picking it back up again?

Then again, we can see them. We can see the effects they have on us, and, for some of us, we never think about letting them go. But we can. We absolutely can.

And we should.

(Image by Chaitra)

Deep and Wide

July 24, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in life

I used to be certain. In that way you are when you don’t really know what you’re talking about, when you have all the book knowledge and none of the lived experience, and you think that’s enough. Faith used to be a thing I did. Not once a week, either, but every day. Only, how I did it was in a very specific way; something I was taught that this was the way you did it because if you did it any other way you were wrong.

I’ve written before about how faith has become much more a journey, and less a destination, over the last few years. It’s something that’s hard to describe, partially because it’s too big for words, but mostly because a lot of the words I would use to describe it I was taught were not acceptable.

I used to be sure about some things, and I still am about what matters. In fact, it’s mostly been about learning what really matters. But it’s harder to put down in words. I used to think I’d write a book about faith. I kind of did but not like how I thought. I used to think it would look like a lot of the other books I’ve read, and I’ve read them all. The ones that tell you how to find God and why you haven’t been able to. The ones that, if they don’t actually give you steps, certainly make it seem like it’s a step-by-step process.

I don’t think I could ever write that book. Not because I don’t have anything to say. But because I know now the really important lessons wouldn’t fit. Although, that’s not true. They would, actually, but the book would be very short.

I had a conversation with a good friend over the weekend. One of those that manages to wind it’s way through every subject. We talked about faith, about our backgrounds, the things we used to think concerning it and how far away we are now from that. She mentioned that she could probably sum up her faith in a paragraph. I instantly knew what she meant.

Because that wasn’t always true. There was a time when we were much more convinced about things, and those things could fill a very big book, but they all were really saying the same thing. “Do this. Not that.” And the “not that” part took up more of the space.

It’s been said before, by people probably further down the road than me, how we have become defined by what we don’t accept. Movies, music, people, but really ideas. More than that, ways of thinking. Faith, we’re taught, is supposed to be a predictable thing. You ought to know it when you see it.

My friend reminded me that so much of what I called “faith” growing up was the fear of letting in something, even the hint of it, that might call into question what I believed. This wasn’t about movies and music, but it could hide in them. The way it would hide in books and classrooms and questions. Oh, questions. Only certain questions were ever allowed, and, not coincidentally, they were the ones we already knew the answer to.

And they were right. That is a faith you can be certain about, one you recognize, because it never changes. It doesn’t come in different sizes or flavors. It barely knows another language. You can wear it like a name tag, and the world will hate you because of it, but we’ll love you because we know you’re one of us. But don’t ever take it off, and don’t ever start to wonder if there are people who might have it but it looks different on them so you can’t tell at a glance. Don’t ever ask if it’s possible that the way they talk about it sounds different because they’re different, but it’s not really different when you actually get down to it. Don’t say any of these things out loud, because if you do they will say you don’t have it.

The more I write it down, the more I realize my story is not so different from lots of others. People honestly questioning all the things they were taught was truth. Even now, though, I’m tempted to act like I’m not like them. After all, I didn’t completely walk away.

Ah, but a good part of me wonders, but what if they haven’t either?

I’m reminded, as I usually am in matters of theology, of a story from C.S. Lewis, where he talks about mail. Everyone gets mail. Everyone gets mail from the same place. The postman. I know what sort of mail I get because I can open it. From that, I can surmise what sort of mail my neighbor gets. But I don’t actually know, because I haven’t opened it. I can be foolish and assume they are getting the exact same mail I am, as if my sort of mail is the only “right” kind of mail. Or I can realize their mail is probably different than mine. How different, I won’t know, not without asking them, but I can accept that it’s still mail, even if I don’t read it myself.

Like I said, I used to be certain. It made sense to me that God only delivers certain kinds of messages in certain kinds of ways, that the Creator of the Universe had a limited playbook. It made sense, because anything else sounded like heresy.

Even now I’m tempted to stop you, to backtrack just a bit and explain that, yes, I still consider myself a Christian and here’s why. I wouldn’t do this so that you will better understand but so that you don’t get the wrong idea about me. Because I was taught that letting people get the wrong idea was a sin. That it should be so obvious what sort of faith you had that no one could possibly misunderstand. But I’m not going to do it.

Oh, yes, I do still consider myself a Christian. It’s not that I lost my faith or that I don’t choose to define it. The book is just not as thick as it was. It’s more like a paragraph. Only what matters, really. The rest, well, I’m still figuring out. I’m less certain than I was, back when I had a lot of learning and less living. I’m less certain, but I’m more sure.

It’s a bit like graduating. You study hard in school to pass the test, but eventually you get out and realize there aren’t any tests anymore, at least not ones that you can cram for. The world is a lot wider than you thought, and no one wears their letter jacket so you can’t immediately tell who is who. These things no longer matter. You’re in the real world now. Things require a little more effort, and you won’t always know that you are passing or failing because it’s really not about that. It’s not about what people think. Try your best, but if someone gets the wrong idea about you that’s really more about them. What matters is whether you know what matters, really.

That’s why I’m more sure. Things aren’t as predictable as I was taught, and I don’t think I could be happier. Faith is more adventurous now. More like the kind of book I’d want to read. I am learning what matters. I am learning who God is. Not so much different but so much better than I was taught.

That’s how it usually is, of course. You lose a lot, but you don’t lose what really matters, and I haven’t. It’s just working differently than I thought. There will always be certain things, certain ways that are wrong, regardless. That’s just life. Right and wrong still exist, but they occupy a lesser margin than you thought. Some things are only one or the other depending on how you approach them. And I’m not saying the straight and narrow isn’t straight or narrow, but I’m starting to think it’s less a paved road and a more hike across open country. A path you have to cut yourself. Harder but better.

Certain books don’t scare me as much as I was taught to fear them. That’s what happens when you know what really matters, you become sort of impervious, so it’s not a problem to pick things up, take what you need, and let the rest go. Real faith welcomes questions.

And as for everyone else. There’s always the temptation to categorize people. Even on this side of things. But when, in all of history and faith, has that ever been the right way to go? No, you have to talk to them, whether you like it or not. That’s why conversations will always work, oh, so much better than categorizing. More effort, but better results. And doesn’t that sound so much more like it? Treating others with respect and love, as you would want to be treated?

Things are deeper now. And wider. I find, even on the road, I can turn my head from one side to the other and admire the view, the places I am passing even if they are not my destination. And I don’t really know the destination. No, that’s not accurate. I have a good idea, but I don’t know who I’ll be by the time I get there. And maybe that’s the idea. If I knew now, it’d be because I was capable of understanding it. But you have to grow into the truth. You’ll understand when you get there because you’ll have become the sort of person who can. Until then, hold to what matters.

And go from there.

(Image by Chaitra)

Again and Again and Again

July 17, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in life

I don’t know sometimes, whether it’s a good or a bad thing that each day is a new day. That, in some respect, every new day is a clean slate, a fresh start. On the one the hand, yes, it’s great that we can, if we want to, wake up each day with the confidence of new opportunities before us, that we don’t have to carry all the burdens of yesterday into tomorrow. On the other hand… well, sometimes I wish I was making more progress.

You see, it’s this quote that really gets me.

“Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.” - C.S. Lewis

I know it’s true. It’s one of those quotes that gets you from the first read. So succinct, so perfectly formed, you can’t help but nod your head. And, at the same time, kick the dirt a little. Because you know it’s true, and you really wish you didn’t.

You’d think after everything, not just the past few months or few years, just in the past 2 weeks, I would have figured it out. The providence, all of the last minute saves, the sheer miraculous timing. You think that would have convinced me that I didn’t really have to do much but show up and God was going to take care of the rest.

But no. Not quite. Despite everything, I still find myself trying to work out the scenarios. I still find myself worrying that it won’t work. There’s still a part of me expecting a knock on the door to tell me it was all a mistake, and, no, I don’t really belong here.

You’d think I’d learn. You’d think I’d have enough examples. But no. Not quite.

I don’t know for sure, but something tells me I’m not the only one. Anxiety and depression would like me to think it’s just me, that when everyone else is given a miracle, they don’t question it, and instead dive headlong into the next challenge with all the confidence in the world. But I don’t think it’s just me.

And I’m starting to wonder if it’s just a part of the equation. Because my natural bent would be to say I need more faith, that if I truly believed I wouldn’t doubt. And while I do believe that’s the end goal, for all of us to trust God well enough that we could be asked to do anything, set any challenge, and we would step into it with the peace that comes from the full knowledge that, whatever outcome, we are doing exactly what we are supposed to be doing, no more no less.

But that’s an end goal, and we’re not there yet. At least, I’m not. And I think that’s okay. After all, who would God be if he wasn’t okay with our middle steps? If everything is about transition, about waiting through change, then that means waiting while things aren’t quite there yet, while we aren’t quite there yet. In fact, we know that if we can’t wait, then we’ll never get there. If we cannot tolerate the middle steps in the journey we will never reach our destination. We’ll never move at all, constantly wishing we were already there, without having to move.

And so, I’m not there yet. I still wake up most days with this little doubt that sometimes isn’t so little. I still try to control the situation after it has been more than illustrated that it is not under my control and that’s how it’s supposed to be. I still make a grab for the thing I only just surrendered to God.

Every day I have to start over again on a lot of this. And that’s okay. We’re told that’s okay. That’s the process, after all. And there is grace. As unbelievable as that is sometimes. I’m allowed to wake up and doubt it all, to wonder if God is going to show up even after he does, to ask, for the millionth time, “Here? Now? Really?” And to try again.

I think grace, no matter how much we talk about it, will always feel too-good-to-be-true. And there are two responses to that: we can make grace out to be less than what it is, or we can accept that we won’t understand it. But we really don’t have to. It’s still there.

And maybe one day, we won’t have to start all over. Maybe each day we aren’t really starting from zero, but slowly, little by little, building up and up. Maybe that’s just how growth happens.

By showing up and trying. Again and again and again.

(Image by Chaitra)

Timing

July 10, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in life

I’m gonna start this by saying that my biggest fear coming to Minneapolis was that it was going to be like Atlanta. Don’t get me wrong, Atlanta had a lot going for it. I met and got to know some amazing people, relationships I’ll treasure forever, but there was always this sense that I was somehow trespassing.

It’s not surprising, I guess. My biggest fear in life is going somewhere I’m not invited. So, it makes sense that I’d feel burdened by the thought that I had made a mistake, that Atlanta didn’t really want me there. And while I don’t think it was really Atlanta or any of the people in it who gave me that feeling, (it was just me), it was still there, and it was kind of right.

I’ve always had this idea, a hope really, that everything in life, good, bad, or indifferent, was all part of the tapestry, every bit held some kind of significance, that it was setting me up for something down the road. Life has tested that theory, especially in the last few years. A lot has come my way that felt significant for all the wrong reasons. How could any of this, I would wonder, actually be setting me up for something down the road?

Well, life is funny, and God, as I have learned a lot in just this past week, is playing the long game.

It’s been a week, and I mean that. It has been a hell of a week. And I could go in point-for-point, but I’m not even sure that would accurately describe how it’s felt this whole time. Equal parts terrifying and exhilarating. But having made now a third cross-country move, I’ve realized some things that I’d like to share with you.

Thoughts on moving:

You will pack very well, at the beginning. You might not start as early as you think you ought to, but once you start you’ll realize there’s a lot less than you thought. This will come in handy later. Life has given you a lot of reasons to pare down to the essentials. You will pack all these up meticulously, categorizing, wrapping, and going through everything thoroughly before you run out of time and just throw what’s left into an empty tub. There is a life lesson here. One you’ll remind yourself of as each new challenge comes your way. It’s this: plan all you want, but in the end, a lot of the most important decisions are going to made at the last minute.
No matter how much you do, it won’t be enough. You’ve planned, of course. You’re not an idiot. You’ve done all you could beforehand, but, despite all that the internet can provide, there are some things you just have to be there for. Which means there is only so much you can do before you get there. You won’t like this. Refer to the lesson above. It will apply.
Nothing will happen the way you think it should. Despite yourself, you will hope and dream and plan out in your head how things are going to work out just so. That’s not a bad thing, but reality is contrarian and will find ways to disappoint you. Many of those will happen on day 1, and, no matter how big or small the disappointment, you will start to wonder if you’ve made a mistake. You will despair, you will pray, you will get really mad at God, but then you will do what you can. Because that’s all you really can do.
Nothing will happen when you think it should. You’d think that important things would be done with enough lead time to prepare properly, that they would build, slowly, over time. But instead, some of the most important things, the things that will insure you get to stay here at all, will come fast and totally last minute. You will go from wondering if you’re going to get any job to having two, about five minutes after you’re wondering what plan B should be. You will go from having no place to live to having one all your own, and a perfect fit, on literally the last day possible.

They say timing is everything. I can tell you that’s true, but they still have no idea what they are talking about. Timing is working for months but getting things done last minute. It’s planning ahead and then changing your plans. It’s never being sure exactly what’s going to happen and yet trusting it will. Because it does.

Because it has. In ways I couldn't possibly have predicted. In ways I was sure it wouldn’t and then it did. In ways that were infuriating in how they held me at bay, daring me to hope just a little longer, just a little wilder, until they actually worked.

And despite my fears, I’m excited. More than I have been in a long while. And I know the hard work isn’t over, yet I’m here.

I’m here, and I can’t help but feel like I belong.

(Image by Chaitra)

Ready

July 03, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in life

“Great people do things before they are ready.”

I have used various versions of that quote before I discovered, just now, that it was from Amy Poehler. That pleases me for some reason. If anyone could inspire you to take a risk and go for it, somehow she seems the best choice.

I’m writing this post from Minneapolis, Minnesota. For those paying attention, you’ll know this is an accomplishment. By the time you read this I will be spending my first full day in the city. By the time you read this I might even have a job. *fingers crossed*Coming here was a desire I’ve had for a while. For this place, specifically, but the desire itself goes even farther back, to before Atlanta.

I’ve written before that one of the main reasons I moved to Atlanta is because I’ve never done it before. Most of the people I know or have met have a story of moving to another place, a new city, for college, or work, or just because. It felt like a rite of passage for adulthood to have experienced a new place all on your own. It was an experience I didn’t have, and one I wanted.

Then Atlanta happened. Then I found myself in West Point, NY, a place I had not lived before, but with my family, so familiar and unfamiliar. You’d imagine that I might be ready to go back, I might be ready to go all the way back even. After Atlanta, after how it ended, after everything, and I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that wished I could.

But there was another part of me, too.

I used to be a homebody. Atlanta cured me of that. But I still wasn’t sure if I was ready to be an adventurer. After everything, it didn’t feel like my calling, it didn’t feel like I had it in me.

To be clear, I’m still not sure, but that’s what this is all about. Doing things when you’re unsure. When you’re not ready.

I’m starting to think we have all, collectively, been fed a line about confidence. We’ve been told that people who do great things know they can do them, that they do them because they are sure they will succeed. Thus, when we are challenged to do something great, when we find ourselves in a situation that would require us to do great things in order to succeed, we search ourselves to find the confidence we think we need in order to even try. Only we don’t find it. Instead, we find the same self-doubt we’ve always had.

And for some, that’s the end of the story. We see we are missing what we think is the critical element, and so we don’t even try, because how could we possibly succeed? For others, though, it’s the beginning. They do it anyway, go anyway, try anyway, and what do they discover?

“Great people do things before they’re ready.”

That’s the truth. The reality behind the façade we’ve all been sold for some reason. No one is truly ready. No one is ever 100% confident before going into any great endeavor. They just did it anyway.

Because that’s how you get things done. That’s how you do the things you aren’t sure you can do. You do them anyways. Because if you were sure, you’d have done it already. If we were sure, it wouldn’t be a challenge. The challenge is in the unknown, and we will never be sure of the unknown, because if we were… Well, you get the idea.

So, here I am. Where I want to be. And I’m not ready. I’m excited, but I’m also terrified. I’m eager to get started and overwhelmed by the task in front of me. I’m not ready. And maybe I am making it up as I go, but you know what? So is everyone else.

Maybe that’s faith. Driving through the night when you can only see as far as your headlights. Doing the next good thing you can because it’s the only thing you can do. Trusting that ever mile is bringing you closer to your destination and every good thing is building towards the thing you want.

Because we’ll never be ready for what life brings us, even the good things, but the good news is, we can still get them even though we aren’t.

(Image by Chaitra)

Kintsugi

June 26, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in life

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with precious metals. It’s something that I’ve been kind of obsessed with ever since I first found out about it. There’s a whole section in my book about it, in fact. It’s one of those concepts that you can’t really believe when you first hear it. It feels too mythic to be true. Like knowing that J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were friends. The realist mind can’t quite believe that the universe would be that poetic. And yet it is.

Because it keeps showing up.

I’ve been reading “Chasing Slow” by Erin Loechner. Slowly. It’s one of those books I knew immediately I’d have to let myself digest. The design of the book alone caught me. I flipped through it, feeling the paper between my fingers, smelling it, (yes, I huff books. It’s my dark, dirty secret.), and I came across a photo. It was of a ceramic bowl, fairly nondescript, except for the gold crack running through it.

I knew what it was immediately, and I didn’t have to read the chapter it was in to know why the picture was there. I hadn’t even started the book and I knew I had to read it.

I wasn’t disappointed, either. Last week, I finally got to the chapter I had been waiting for, with the picture of the pot, and I can’t tell you off the top of my head what the author was saying about it, I only know it spoke right to me.

It’s my last few days in New York. This time next week I’ll be in Minneapolis. This time next week I’ll be homeless and jobless again, if for a short time. I have prospects, don’t worry. But it’s the start of something new and different, and I don’t know exactly how to not have anxiety about it. Even when I’m on an upswing, when things feel like they are coming together, I have a slight panic. I can’t not worry sometimes. It’s like my brain doesn’t know another gear to be in.

It’s made worse by the fact that big, cross-country moves have been a mixed bag, at best, for me. They hold a lot of promise, but there’s so much wrapped up in them that I can’t help but wonder: what if this time isn’t any different?

There are parts of me that still haven’t forgiven myself for Atlanta. So much of my failure I have always and only seen as that: failure. The parts where I screwed up, when I could/should have done better. And even as I’m looking forward and wondering if this will be yet another one, Kintsugi shows up. And reminds me what failure does.

I was talking with a friend this week who had an attitude towards the whole endeavor that I was honestly jealous of. She told me simply “why not?” Why not go ahead and move across the country and try and see what happens? I wanted to believe. I still want to. Because deep down I know she’s right.

I’ve only ever seen failure as failure, as my fault. I could never see it as anything more, and I definitely never considered how it might be good for me. And then there’s a book and a broken pot, and I’m reminder of what failure is.

A crack of gold.

That’s the truth of Kintsugi, the breathtakingly beautiful art of it. The cracks make it better. A pot is a pot. Clay, it’s value set. Shattered, it becomes worthless. Trash. But remade, put back together, and it becomes valuable again, more than it was before.

I see my failures as cracks, something that mars my value, but Kintsugi says things can be remade, not despite their flaws but because of them.

I have a crack of gold, and knowing that makes this next step a little less scary. Because it might be a failure. It might be hard, it might hurt. I might not implode like Atlanta, but I might leave with a scar or two.

And yet I know they will be golden. And I have to stop and tell God: “I’m scared, but I’m going anyway. I’m uncertain, but I’m going anyway.

All I can ask is that you bless it.”

And I will come out golden. The cracks will be part of the narrative.

The story told by grace. A story I don’t have to be afraid to live through.

(Image by Chaitra)

The Lies and The Story

June 19, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in life

It’s hard, sometimes, to take my own advice.

I can talk, write about faith, about building confidence in myself. I can tell each and every person I know how much they are doing exactly what they should be doing, but, when it comes down to it, I can still fail to live up to my own words. Every time.

I think anyone who has anxiety can describe in similar terms how the process goes. It sneaks up on you. It usually starts with a thought, innocuous, maybe even, at first, unnoticed. A question you ask yourself. And that sparks another thought and another and another. And before you know it you’re sliding down the path to full-on breakdown.

I could give examples. Goodness knows, I’ve had more than a few from this week alone, but honestly I’m afraid I might start it again, and, in any case, it’s never just one thing. It’s the process. That seemingly inevitable slide towards mental collapse. No matter how many times it happens, you can never quite cut it off before it really gets going, and once it does, no matter how much you want to, you can never quite stop it.

It’s easy to say, “Don’t think about it.” Oh, but what to do when it feels like something else is doing the thinking for you?

I wonder sometimes if I’ll ever get the handle on this, or if I’ll really have to get that therapy I’ve been thinking about but have never been a stable enough situation to start it. (And don’t tell me it’s not about being stable. I mean I’ve moved too much.) I wonder sometimes if I don’t have to live, think, like this. That still, somehow, seems too good to be true. And yet I wish for it every day.

Because I know that anxiety lies, but there are days I just can’t follow my own advice.

I talk about building things little by little, but I doubt that I’m actually building anything.

I say focus on the next step and you’ll get there, and I can’t believe I’m actually going anywhere.

I want to prove it wrong. In that moment, when the thoughts are getting away from me, I want to find the piece of evidence to yank out and say “Here! Here’s how I know you’re wrong.” Only I don’t have it.

Atlanta did a lot to me. It cured me of my homebody-ness, opened me up, changed me, but there are parts of me that still have not forgiven myself for it. And they are so very afraid Minneapolis is going to turn out the same way. And I am having a hard time trying to convince them otherwise.

So I tell myself a story. I tell myself it is a story. Like any story, like the best stories, you can’t tell how things are going to turn out, and yet when you look back, you can see it was all meant to be. The best stories get rough; it looks like things aren’t going to happen most just before they do.

Some days I believe the story. Some days I don’t.

A thought popped into my head this week, about Egypt. I remember from Exodus, when Moses is leading his people out of slavery, they’re in the desert and the first thing they can say when it gets hard is how great Egypt was. Egypt, where they were enslaved. Egypt, where their sons were killed, where they were beaten, where they broke their backs working. It wasn’t great, but Egypt, to them, seemed better than where they were, and I’m starting to see why.

Because Egypt was bad, but it was predictable. You didn’t get a lot to eat, but you knew where your next meal was coming from. The work was hard, but it was nothing new. Chains are their own kind of safety, and freedom can be scary sometimes.

I can get in that thought mode. I have been. Looking back at Austin, when I had a regular job, a place to stay, when I didn’t have a lot but I had enough that I didn’t worry about losing something. About the power or the food or the rent. I didn’t always like the numbers but they added up; I felt responsible at least.

I can’t see the numbers. I see possibilities, but it’s a lot of unknowns, and I have nothing substantial to prove my anxiety wrong. But that’s an adventure, isn’t it? That’s what it means. You can’t have an adventure without the unknown. You can’t grow, you can’t change at all, without moving into somewhere you’ve never been before.

That’s freedom. From the things that were slowly killing you, though it’s hard to remember now. From the cage that would have suffocated you because you could never grow bigger than it. From the lies that you didn’t know were lies, and, yes, they’ve gotten louder but at least you know what they are.

I don’t have all the answers. I honestly hope no one reading has ever gotten that impression. I have a lot of questions. I wish so much that I could give you the life lesson, the formula. God knows I’ve been looking for it long enough. I wish so much that I could talk you after the fact, with all this behind me, so that I could speak from experience with clarity, instead of right in the middle with a lot of confusion.

But I’m pushing through. It’s all I know how to do when the thoughts get away from me. And maybe that’s enough.

Maybe this is a story. Maybe anxiety really lies. And maybe I don’t have to believe that all the time. The story goes on anyways.

And maybe it’s a good one.

(Image by Chaitra)

Making It Up As I Go

June 12, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in life

Confidence comes and goes for me.

It never comes easy, but when it does it rarely stays for long.

I’ve devoted a lot of time and thought to where exactly that comes from for me, this lack of confidence. I’d like to blame a lifetime of disappointment, not all major, which isn’t that surprising. It’s the small, frequent ones that teach you. I’d like to blame a crippling anxiety complex, but it’s origins are just as numerous and inter-related. And that’s probably it. Its origins are as vast as any other part of my personality.

So, unsurprisingly, it will not be easily rooted out. Whatever this block is, and though I call it a lack it feels like a block, like something else is standing in its place, stealing its chair so it can’t sit down and stay a while, whatever it is, it’s not going to be cured overnight.

The thing about me is that I can dish it out, but I cannot take it. I’m an encourager. I couldn’t tell you when that started, either, but it’s something I’ve long since fallen into and one of the few things I can brag about myself. And I don’t simply mean “encouragement” like “good job”; more like “that’s a great idea. What do you need to get started?” Know me for more than five minutes and I’ll likely have mentioned at least one of my friends and whatever project they’re working on that I’m genuinely thrilled about. A good portion of the reason I wear So Worth Loving shirts is because I’m immensely proud of Eryn and the company she started. There’s nothing I like better than giving shout-outs.

But when it comes to me and whatever I’m working on, moving towards, dreaming about, I’m more likely to be mute.

This week I sat at dinner with friends and family, and I realized, as I looked around the table, that everyone sitting there was making some big leap of faith. My friend, Abbie, who just returned from another year running her English schools in Ukraine. My parents, who a few short months from now will be heading over there to run one of those schools. My sister, who was getting married that weekend and had just moved cross-country to be with her soon-to-be husband.

And as I looked around the table, not only did I realize what incredible faith each of them was showing but how confident I was with each of their decisions. There was no doubt in my mind that each of them was doing exactly what they needed to be doing, and thus there was no doubt in my mind that each was going to succeed.

But as I looked around that table, going down the line of each person I loved and thanking God that I got to sit at the table with them, I eventually swung back around to me. Only there was no confidence. I was surrounded by faith, but it felt absent on my end of the table. And it wasn’t because I’m not taking a leap of faith. I’m moving cross-country, in a few weeks. I’m stepping into something new and different. And yet I did not feel like them. I did not feel worthy to sit at that table.

See what I mean? I can dish it out, but, for some reason, I can’t take it.

I don’t know where that comes from exactly. One would think I’d have no confidence in anything or anyone, but instead I radiate it in all directions only to have a giant blind spot for myself. It feels a lot like those old cartoons. Where the character has a raincloud right over their head, but only over their head.

I look around at the people I know, more even than were at that table, all of whom are doing amazing things, and I feel the same level of confidence for them. I know they will succeed, not without work, but I know they will. I look at them and know they are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing; they are stepping out in faith.

But I feel like I’m making it up as I go.

Before you get too far ahead of me, I think that’s it. I didn’t think that in the moment, but later, when I really started thinking about, I realized that I think that’s how it always is.

I know confident people, those who can have as much faith in themselves as others. I know it’s possible to live like that, but something tells me that at the back of it, deep down, there’s this feeling. The one that tells you everyone else has it figured out but you. The trick, I suspect, is in learning to ignore that voice.

Maybe that’s all confidence is. Looking anxiety and doubt in the face and doing it anyway, believing anyway. It’s something I’m still learning, of course, and I know I’m where I am in order to do just that.

More than that, maybe there’s a reason faith in others comes so easily for me, and why I am so blessed to have so much cause for it. Maybe I’m surrounded by all these amazing people to remind myself that no one necessarily feels amazing while they are doing it. The leaps of faith rarely feel like faith when you’re making them; mostly they just feel like leaps. Maybe everyone feels like they are making it up as they go.

And maybe I need to believe in them all the more, especially when I can’t believe in myself. Because that’s why we’re here, why we have things like community. To remind us of what we can’t see in our own situation.. To give to each other what is not so easily given to ourselves.

Because maybe if I believe in you, you’ll learn to believe in you, and maybe I’ll learn to believe in me, too.

(Image by Chaitra)

In the Congress of Rocks and Trees

June 04, 2017 by Douglas Humphries in life, writing

C.S. Lewis liked to walk.

I remind myself of that whenever I’m outside. For even something as simple as the walk from the front door to the car. I remind myself that my favorite author walked all the time, for the fun of it. Alone, with company, it was his favorite activity.

I walk so rarely these days, and I’d like to blame a soul-sucking day job, a bunch of responsibilities that tie me to a computer, or just the general background noise of anxiety that usually surrounds me. I’d love to say it was some outside thing barring me from getting out, but I know it’s me. I want to, but at the same time I don’t.
This is depression. There are things you want to do, things you know might make you feel better if you just did them, but you can’t let yourself. There are better things, more important things to do, things to worry about, and, no, they do nothing for your mental health but you suspect you’d feel worse if you let them slide to go do something just for you. That might ruin the experience of the thing you wanted to do, and so you stay right where you are, under the weight of all the stuff you can’t put down.

There’s a reason they call it depression.

Occasionally, though, I manage to climb out. It feels like a sin, but I do it anyway. I put on actual shorts and actual sandals, (and actual sunscreen, because I’m not an idiot), and I step out onto the midmorning grass and turn to the path behind the house. The one I’ve wanted to walk sense I moved here but never have for all the reasons that I don’t walk as much as C.S. Lewis.

I notice two things the second I step out. 1. The path is a lot steeper than I thought. I could tell it had to be fairly steep, given the distance, the height of the hill, but I thought there’d be more steps, something cut into the hill, not the dirt trail cutting a 45 to the left up to the top. 2. The path is harder to see than I thought. Again, some part of me thought there’d me more of a “path”. Something obvious, something maintained. I notice both of these things, followed quickly by a third. 3. Neither of these things stop me.

I forgot it had rained the day before, hard enough to knock leaves down from the canopy above. Leaves that are still wet, that don’t crunch happily under my feet, that obscure the already hard-to-see path, giving the steepness a nice, slippery surface.

I cross the little stream that separates the yard from the hill, hopping from rock to rock with ease. This, oddly, has always come easy to me. For someone naturally physically awkward, I can, when needed, call on the balance of a mountain goat. Something I remind myself of proudly as I make my first steps on the path, planting my feet firmly on the wet leaves. Something I remind myself of sarcastically not 30 seconds later when I slip and land on my hands and knees trying to duck under a branch.

C.S. Lewis liked to walk. And he was a British professor so you know he did it in something three piece and tweed. I crawl under the branch until I can find something to pull up on. I brush myself off after I do and keep trekking. I don’t fall again.

Ancient societies all share a reverence for places like this. Glades and groves. Places where there’s more nature than you. Something told them this was where gods, faeries, and monsters gathered. Tread lightly. Tread respectfully.

When I round a corner as the path levels out, it makes sense. Something in the light, something in the way things are situated tells me I’ve stepped out of what I call the world into something else. The congress of rocks and trees. The stones to my right might as well be a meeting place. The dense brush to my left might as well lead to somewhere I could never guess.

There’s a magic to hiking, especially alone. You can’t take anything with you. I somehow never do. There are so many things that keep me from doing this, from just stepping out my door and choosing myself for an hour. But when I do, I find that none of those things have followed me. None of those thoughts, none of those questions. I feel guilty about it afterwards, for forgetting, but never while I’m there. I am lost to the world.

So much so I only now notice I’m bleeding. The fall was worse than I thought. The dull pain I thought was simply my pride turned out to be a nice little cut on my knee. I contemplate going back, for a moment thoughts like infection and amputation flit through my brain, but I decide against it. Partly to avoid going back down and risk another, worse fall, and partly because I’m not done yet.

The best way out is through. What’s more, I can see the path now. It’s still not as clear as I’d like, such that I get the feeling if I stepped off I’d lose it, but it’s there. I go on. It’s not long after that I’m rewarded for my efforts.

The trees break and the top of the hill opens up into a wide grassy field. I turn around instinctively and am greeted by a view of the entire valley. A vista from one end of my vision to the other. I forget I’m bleeding. I forget the pain in my legs and the splinter in my hand I’ll only discover an hour later. I forget the questions I can’t answer. I forget the ticking clock and the sinking in my stomach that I get whenever I think about any of these things. I don’t forget to look. I don’t forget to take in every bit of the view and every thought and word it inspires in me.

C.S. Lewis liked to walk. I think I know why.