{"id":180,"date":"2011-09-18T15:56:58","date_gmt":"2011-09-18T15:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.donasofia.org\/?p=180"},"modified":"2020-09-12T02:02:25","modified_gmt":"2020-09-12T02:02:25","slug":"the-need-to-be-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.donasofia.org\/?p=180","title":{"rendered":"The Need to be Special"},"content":{"rendered":"

Forgive me, O God, for anticipating that I am somehow more special, more liked than those around me. I know better. But then again, surely I am just a bit more special<\/em>. The camera lens is\u00a0somehow pointed at me, I’m certain, even when\u00a0the photographer is taking a wide angle shot of the whole room.<\/p>\n

I do believe that I am loved and desired by You.\u00a0When\u00a0wrestling with this fifteen years ago, I found such sweet relief in Henri Nouwen\u2019s words \u00a0that\u00a0You do adore me but never at the exclusion of another\u2014that we are all your most favorite.<\/strong> That You have a story for each of us to write, with\u00a0chapters\u00a0we\u2019ve not yet even thought about or imagined. Your pen waits poised above the paper of our lives and still we, your characters, choose to sit down and wait out the day. We can believe and lean into this story that awaits us, a story which\u00a0never excludes another from Your love.<\/p>\n

\n

But then there is David, \u201cthe apple of your eye.\u201d What about him? Why did he get the special label? Was it because he had the heart of my Spencer: dancing, hoping, worshiping, anticipating\u2014bringing such delight, that You couldn\u2019t help Yourself from choosing a favorite? Was it because\u00a0he dove into life head-first, all in, buck naked, holding nothing back? Because\u00a0he was willful, optimistic beyond reason and repentant when things fell apart? Surely it was because he had an eye for beauty and in doing so…saw You.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

If so, I know this Divine love You had for David, because You gave me this boy, my Spencer\u00a0who never fails to delight me, this apple of my eye, whom I adore even while my heart cracking open.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

*\u00a0 \u00a0 * \u00a0 \u00a0 *<\/p>\n

I have these grandiose ideas. I imagine wanting fame. No, not fame, that sounds too exhausting and at a great loss of freedom. No I simply want to remain… and be found.<\/p>\n

Okay, I want to be identified outside of the masses. I cannot deny it: I want to be special. I love living in a house on the corner with shutters like no one else has, a home that faces a different direction than all the others on the street. It\u2019s highly visible, this house. It is not more expensive or bigger or more anything really; it\u2019s just pretty…and easily identified. I can describe it and everyone knows which one it is.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have a mane of unruly red hair. I am not tall with commanding presence. I don\u2019t make heads turn. In spite of what my husband might believe, I enter into rooms unnoticed. I will continue to age and with that, I will surely become a non-entity.<\/p>\n

I understand my surfer friend CV\u2019s desire to be inked in bright colorful sleeves. To carry one\u2019s story on the outside. To be read, to be seen<\/p>\n

Why move to a city and get lost in the faces of the crowd? How many people live on Orcas Island, for example? Brilliant posturing move for an author. With\u00a0selling this house, I will face the potential move into a condo tucked in a sea of condos that look like every other one. \u00a0A part of my soul dies at the thought. Will I ever lose this incessant desire\u00a0to be found? I don\u2019t need to be extraordinary. Well, above average, maybe. Okay, yes, I\u2019ll take extraordinary, as long as it doesn\u2019t take too much effort.<\/p>\n

I want to be found on the internet. I want to be found in the bookstores.<\/p>\n

Yet, ironically I choose to live small, out of the way. I remain hidden. Even the blinds on my house are most often closed. I don\u2019t want people seeing in. Especially at night. I am hard pressed not to let anyone glance in at my inner sanctum. Daisy, on the other hand, would set herself up in pink fuzzy slippers and a boa and leave the windows flung wide open.<\/p>\n

Am I afraid of disappointing? Or is it this one-way intimacy again. I want to be found so they might come here and find me and be thankful that I am here and that they might find sanctuary and comfort and I\u2019ll remain mysterious and quiet. \u201cShe\u2019s an enigma,\u201d they\u2019ll say.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never know what she\u2019ll have for us next!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was a recluse, but we all wanted to know her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHer prose captured us. We were never sure if her stories were about her or just fictional characters.\u201d<\/p>\n

My mother, Jesus, Mary. Bono, Mother Teresa. Who really knows the depth of what lies within them? The maverick sounds good. We\u00a0dream of this in a hero, don’t we? The lone ranger\u00a0who is stalwart and strong, always showing up just at the right time, a knight, an\u00a0incredible lover, but always\u00a0mysterious? He doesn\u2019t need, doesn’t bend unless you are his special one, and only then he let down his guard, and only\u00a0on his own terms, and just\u00a0for a moment.<\/p>\n

If the mystery is solved, one is ordinary again. No longer larger than life. Easily defined. Dull. Forgotten.<\/p>\n

Maybe I need to go the way of other high profile authors: learn another language or two, travel the world, hang out with some famous people, list them in the acknowledgments and casually use their first names in the story?<\/p>\n

I just might, but in the meantime, I am in love with the romantic image I’m granted, the\u00a0description of life in the Rocky Mountains, a quaint ski town, the romance of the Big Sky.<\/p>\n

The undeniable focal point\u00a0as one\u00a0bumped up our\u00a0treacherous rollercoaster dirt road was\u00a0the\u00a0neighbor’s house, an impressive monstrosity back then, alone on its rolling hills and fields below. It commanded attention,\u00a0front and center. However, I loved a\u00a0quaint\u00a0ivory-colored chalet with a green roof. \u00a0<\/strong>Venture up that same road, letting\u00a0your gaze leave the obtuse mega-obvious\u00a0until\u00a0your eye travels just a few degrees to the\u00a0east of the gulley. There she is, sitting with her shoulders back, her face to the southern sky. Unpretentious. Alone with simple dignity and charm. How, I loved that chalet. Her panoramic views, the fire in her little red wood stove dancing, her rainbows, her wild creatures in the black of night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forgive me, O God, for anticipating that I am somehow more special, more liked than those around me. I know better. But then again, surely I am just a bit more special. The camera lens is\u00a0somehow pointed at me, I’m certain, even when\u00a0the photographer is taking a wide angle shot of the whole room. I do believe that I am loved and desired by You.\u00a0When\u00a0wrestling with this fifteen years ago, I found such sweet relief in Henri Nouwen\u2019s words \u00a0that\u00a0You […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,20],"tags":[50,4,24,11,14],"class_list":["post-180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prayer","category-writing-2","tag-identity","tag-memoir","tag-montana","tag-son","tag-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.donasofia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.donasofia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.donasofia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.donasofia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.donasofia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=180"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.donasofia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":867,"href":"http:\/\/www.donasofia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180\/revisions\/867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.donasofia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.donasofia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.donasofia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}