Perfectly Wrong

Sometimes I like fake.

Sometimes I prefer the aisles of Hobby Lobby's darling Fall decor over stepping outdoors, into Fall. I adore farmhouse-themed paintings and rustic welcome signs, but I don't like the messiness that comes with real farms. I find myself enjoying the idea of something rather than stepping into the reality of that something itself.

This week my daughters and I, with their children, got together on the four-year anniversary of my mom's death. We explored going to tea like we had done in the past to remember my mom, their grandma, who loved to give tea parties. Yet somehow we landed on the idea to visit a nearby farm to let the kids see animals and pick out pumpkins to bring home.

It was midday, and the sun glared, giving us no chance for cute kids-with-pumpkin photos. The pumpkins themselves were unappealing. Toy tractors set out for children to ride wouldn't roll on the wood chips they were placed on. And my grandchildren were noticeably uninterested in the farm animals (except the one pooping sheep that got their attention for a bit).

I went to the produce room to purchase something to support the farm. I found the produce to be, well, ugly. Grapes sat in a basket, and they were much smaller than grocery store grapes, with no fun packaging announcing, "I am a grape. Buy me!" The signs in front of each bunch of vegetables were not drawn in modern calligraphy but just written with ordinary handwriting. Apples were small and dull, peppers unimpressive in their presentation. I read a sign advertising olive oil. Olive oil I could buy. It would be in a bottle with a pretty label. But the olive oil supply was out.

Finally I saw a freezer containing grass-fed beef, so I purchased a pound of ground beef (with a SKU code on the packaging, which somehow makes it seem a step from it being too real).

I don't know why I was so repulsed by everything I saw at the farm. I give this farm thumbs-up on Facebook and follow it on Instagram, "loving" each picture posted. I've even enjoyed being there in the past. Perhaps I feel safer viewing it from behind the screen—cleaner, no dirt getting into my sandals, no harsh sun beating down on me, no animal smells or bodily functions.

This morning I'm remembering a family road trip from my childhood. I saw beautiful views, sitting in admiration while looking through the windows of our fully packed Volkswagen bus. Am I really seeing this lovely scenery, I wondered to myself, or does it not count because I am seeing it through this glass window? But when we got out of our van and stepped into the real, beautiful and ugly, dusty, windy, cold or hot place, I experienced what was real about all I saw. While I may have both liked and disliked some things about the place I got to enter into and explore, I always appreciated the real.

Our group traveled from the farm to an outdoor mall, where we enjoyed coffee. Karis had baked some of Grandma's cookies she shared with us. I then took the children on a ride in a fake train. My granddaughter stood up quickly, excited to see a water fountain out the window and bumped her head. She cried for her mama, who we could see through the window the entire train ride. My grandson had opted for a seat in the back car, away from us, joined by a fake skeleton. Just before the ride began, he came up to our car, and told me, "I was only a little, tiny bit scared of the skeleton," so he rode in the train car with me, a bit shaken.

Still pumpkinless, we said our parking lot goodbyes. My daughters and I noted that my not-animal-loving mom would have appreciated that we didn't have fun at the farm; not enjoying animals seemed a fitting way to honor her memory! We hugged, and I told them I would send money through a phone app so they could buy their own pumpkins at the grocery store. How "not real" can you get?

I later texted Karis and Megan, "Thank you for today. It was wrong in so many ways, which somehow made it perfect."

Perhaps memories of the day my mom died held enough reality that I necessarily had to reject the nitty-gritty, real stuff of this world for a day.

Sometimes I like fake. And sometimes that's OK.

Diane Mann, 2019

Inconvenient Truth

When I try to write, I feel like I am making myself do something, trying to manipulate me somehow. No matter how healthily I attempt to look at it, that several-foot distance between me and my keyboard is packed with dread.

I hate dread.

If I could bypass it, I would. Maybe I can. Maybe the answer is out there, the little previously unnoticed route around the dark valley.

It ought not be this way. I’ve been given a gift, to be received, delighted in, and shared. Instead I hang onto it like it’s a gift card, dreaming while I roam around Target trying to decide how to spend it. So. Many. Possibilities.

And what if I make the “wrong” choice? What if I spend it on toilet paper when I should have spent it on eyeliner? Hairspray? A new shirt? Batteries for my husband (he would be so happy)? I’m certain the giver of the gift intended that I find joy in it rather than angst. 

Meanwhile I gaze at others finding joy and freedom in expressing themselves, in first receiving then sharing what’s been given them. The cousin who can’t stop composing new music, her hands dancing across piano keys. The son who prolifically writes satire, word after clever word. The painters, the poets, the songwriters, the decorators, the choreographers, the gardeners—all producing something.

“Diane doesn’t DO anything.” I can’t even tell you whether this was ever spoken, but it’s a message from my childhood lingering way beneath the surface of me. To find its source seems like more digging than I’m up for. But then when one pulls a big weed from the ground, is it necessary to find out how it got there? Maybe not. Maybe let’s just get the weed out and plant something lovely in its place.

Diane dreamed. Diane thought. Diane danced and climbed trees. Diane observed. Diane giggled. Diane made up songs. Diane absorbed things in her heart. Diane sought and often found meaning in everything. Diane admired beauty. She pondered and played, her pondering being more her reality than her play. She swam. She enjoyed people. She loved. 

I suppose she couldn’t be put into a box. “This is our child who plays piano.”

“This is our child who enjoys animals.” “This is our child who reads incessantly.” 

No, there wasn’t one box to put me in. I was inconvenient in that way, perhaps.

How inconvenient that Diane is in drill team. That means we have to get her to the school early on Saturdays so she can march in parades. That means we have to buy her nylons at 7-eleven on the way (why were my parents always surprised I needed new nylons for every parade?). Frantic realization, followed by heavy sighs, followed by a rushed three-mile drive. 

My needs seemed a bit too much. I seemed a bit too much. And I wonder whether I now treat myself and my desires as an inconvenience. 

How inconvenient that I have ideas to write about some things, about many somethings, in fact. That means I have to step up and meet that need to express myself. That means I have to travel the dreaded “three miles” from where I sit to my computer. Frantic, followed by heavy sighs, followed by possibly dragging myself to where I need to be. A victim of my own gifts and desires? 

I don’t know. I know that my writer friend Ruth was seen and embraced by her parents. I wonder what I would be like now if I had been treated the same. Her dad, when she was eight years old, told her, “Write down the things God whispers to you.” He saw her and encouraged her to step into who she was.

I suppose I am angry I didn’t have encouragement to be who I am. I suppose I think it’s all rather unfair that my guiding factor was to see how little trouble I could be, to attempt to need as little as possible, to not overwhelm the already chaotic family (albeit fun) system in which I lived.

I needed to write this today.

It’s okay to need. And dream. And ponder. And be angry. And heal.

Diane Mann 2019

I Think of Ray

It's been over half a decade now since I met him. I know only a handful of facts about him. And few pictures of that time we crossed paths remain in my mind.

My husband and I approached a camp area on a backpacking loop in the Sierras after our first day of hiking. We would spend four nights and five days making our way through the wilderness. "Welcome!" bellowed a happy, hairy, bare-bellied man who had just emerged from the river. As he dried himself off, he expressed how lucky we all were to be camping in such a beautiful area and pointed out places we could set up our tent. It was as though we were checking into a five-star resort and he was the check-in attendant. We shortly found out his name was Ray—Ray, the camp greeter, we dubbed him. Ray was jolly, grateful, and Ray adored this trail (coincidentally named Rae Lakes Loop).

I am an unlikely backpacker, the one people see, do a quick adjustment in their minds from what a typical backpacker looks like, then most often throw out a word of encouragement, "You can do it! You're almost there! Keep going!" Not super strong, not young, not REI-ad worthy. Ray looked even less like he belonged on the trail than I did. Health and fitness did not appear a priority for him, but hiking this trail was. He and his buddies, Lou and Brian, trekked the 42-mile-loop once a year.

Sometimes we would pass the threesome while they rested on the side of the trail, and sometimes they would pass us. Ray and Lou lost Brian one evening, and Brian carried their cooking equipment, so my husband heated up their food for them and they camped with us.

While Ray's Top Ramen was boiling, he told us about his grandfather, who used to lead a pack of mules over this same pass in the early 1900s. This trail held much meaning for Ray.

Glen Pass, 11,926 feet above sea level, 6,000 feet above where we started!

While we didn't hike with Ray and his buddies, per se, our trip did parallel theirs some, as we often ended up camping in the same area in the evenings. Each night Ray was the last to arrive to the campsite, while others wondered whether he would make it before nightfall. He always did.

On Day 3, we climbed Glen Pass, 11,926 feet above sea level, the most difficult part of the trail—steep, rocky, exhausting. Whatever strength one had, this ascent demanded it all and then some. Brent, Lou, and Brian were way ahead, followed by me then Ray. I didn't want to leave Ray behind so purposefully slowed my pace, once even hiking back down a ways to sit with him as he rested.

Perching ourselves on rocks alongside the trail, we sat to catch our breath. Ray reached into his left shirt pocket and pulled out a brightly colored package. "Have you ever tried these energy chews?" he asked. "They're really good," and handed me one. I savored the bright-orange chewy goodness he gave me. I don't know whether the treat had a placebo effect or the vitamins B-12 and C it contained really had their promised results, but I did receive energy to keep going after the rest and the tasty burst of deliciousness Ray shared with me.

Several breaks and refreshments later, we, with elation, reached the top of the pass, where we high-fived each other, drooled over the majestic views, and snapped photos of ourselves, each one rejoicing in the victorious moment.

It's been years since I've met Ray and his friends. Our promises to keep in touch through email fell flat. But when I'm exhausted while doing something difficult that seems beyond my own strength, I think of Ray, the value of rest and camaraderie, and that orange energy chew.

But mostly I think of Ray.

Intended Target

I've been texting a scammer.

It's not like I believe him or anything. But he has been scamming someone close to me. And ticking me off in the process.

He is in love. He cares for her heart. He will never do anything to tear her heart. "I prove to you I am real babe," he writes to me, in sentence patterns screaming this truth:  He is not from San Diego, California.

He is not in the armed forces and on deployment in Afghanistan.

He is not using those iTunes cards sent to him for watching video games because the Army won't allow him access to his money.

The five phones he ordered on his victim's Verizon account are not for an orphanage of 25 children who can't afford phones.

He is not quitting the Army (or is it Navy? It changes.) to come home to marry anyone at a destination wedding in Hawaii.

There is no promised three-carat diamond ring cut in a heart shape.

And the pictures. The obviously cut-and-pasted photographs of his fresh, smiling face, that touch of gray, the exact same in every scene but pasted onto a real soldier's body.

It would be funny if it weren't so awful.

He is a fisherman in a sense, trolling his line out in the sea of women to find vulnerable ones, who are grieving and broken—and just. can't. see.

He is livid that I don't believe he is who he says he is. After going back and forth with him a few times, I have that funny feeling I had when I would engage my two-year-olds in an argument. "Don't get on their same level," the experts warned. "You're sure to lose."

So I remove myself from his level, this person committing crimes right in front of my face, crimes that are hurting someone I love. (I liken what I am experiencing to watching a thug take my grandmother's purse from her hands while I stand a foot away.) I back up a bit and try to disengage. You're not going to win this, I say to myself. So I text scammer-man this truth (after telling him his grammar sucks; the court reporter in me had to defend the English language!), "God sees real you and loves you."

I'm not expecting repentance from him.

But it felt good to speak truth into the situation, truth that is bigger than our lies, light that is brighter than the darkest, most remote places of our hearts.

I don't know whether he heard me. He didn't respond after that. But I heard me.

God sees real me.
God's light reaches into my darkest places, those places where I, too, just. can't. see.
God sees who I pretend to be, who I wish I were versus who I really am.

I don't know whether the words I texted reached Nigeria (or the Navy ship where "Romeo" is serving our country).

But the words reached me. God sees real me.

And loves me.