Rhena Writes

Tag: faith

  • If a gift falls in a forest and no one is there to receive it, does it make a sound?

    Gifts, the having of, the creation of, the giving of, the receiving of: it’s all been on my mind lately. I often talk a big game about the spirit of how I give. Sometimes I’ll make something handmade — mostly knitted — with the intention of giving it to someone specific. Hand knitted items are work. They take a lot of time and a lot of thought. But this is all a process that I enjoy. Knitting nourishes my soul — the act of then giving the item to someone else is secondary to all of that.

    And what I try to keep at the forefront of my mind is just the idea that once I give the gift away, it’s out of my hands. I give in the spirit of not expecting even a thank you in “return”. The intended recipient has rarely asked for the gift, after all.

    One time, however, my philosophy around giving these times of handmade gifts was tested.

    I made an item for someone. As usual, I sent it off. I did track the package (maybe that was my first mistake so I knew that it got at least as far as this person’s front porch. And then: I heard nothing back about even receiving the gift. Not a text, not a note, nothing….

    So of course, I started to make up all sorts of stories in my head. The person hated my gift. Someone stole it. This person was busy and forgot to contact me. I considered cyber-stalking them to see if I could see the gift in any on-line pictures. I debated asking mutuals if they had seen the gift or to try to subtly mention to the recipient to find out whether they received it. I thought about how I could ask the person directly. If someone stole it from their front porch, surely they would want to know that so that they could… what? I don’t know. Around and around I went in circles in my head.

    There was nothing I could do that didn’t go back on my original spirit of giving a gift. I just had to accept that I may never know what happened after it left my hands. And I had to trust that it will land where it needs to be.

    But what I do know is that it did what it needed to do for me while it was in my hands as I was creating it. And even now, it continues to serve me by teaching me lessons about sharing gifts. Of course, I’m talking about both tangible and intangible gifts. It’s no coincidence that the meaning of “talents” in the biblical parable means monetary wealth as well as gifts both physical and spiritual. I have received certain abilities including the focus required to be able to knit. I show my gratitude for these abilities by using them and then, in turn, sharing them with other people. What happens after that, what the next person does with that is out of my hands, literally.

    Of course, I’m writing also about things like creating a blog and sharing it on-line. The time, focus, vocabulary, etc… that I use to write a blog are gifts given to me. And once I send these words out into the universe, I can’t control what happens to them.

    When I sit down to knit, I focus on the tactile sensations of the needles slipping through my fingers, the softness of the yarn and the squishiness of the fabric that’s emerging from the two. I relish in picking out colors and patterns. I sometimes sit back in wonder that my body and brain are able to coordinate to create something that might be useable or beautiful or both. Nowhere in this sheer joy is there any consideration for how anyone else might respond to my knitting.

    It’s taken me a long time to feel the same way about my writing: that it’s the process of using this gift that I’ve been given, of unraveling words and ideas and images on the page. And then, yes, hitting publish or send or share. And to just sit with the process without thinking about where it might land and how it will be received.

    And, yes, of course, I’m also writing about parenting and sending my kids off into the world, trying to be present to them when they are with me and then trusting that they will land where they need to be even if I don’t know where that might be.

  • No more waiting for permission…

    Approximately 25 years ago, I moved to Thailand, my dad’s country of origin to teach English in his hometown at his old junior high school. After about a year of doing that, I taught students at Karenni Refugee Camp #3 on the border of Thailand and Burma (or actually, the region of SE Asia that Burma was attempting to occupy, thereby creating the need for refugee camps). I returned to the US after a total of three years in Thailand and started an MFA program in creative nonfiction writing.

    My thesis was about the Karenni, some of their history and some of their stories, and centered around my time as a teacher in the refugee camp. My hope was that my thesis would lead to a published book or at least some essays and articles. I did end up writing and publishing an article for a local alt-weekly and one piece in a SE Asian studies journal after I finished my MFA. (Both were about the Karenni people.) All these twenty years later, I’m still performing a post-mortem on my writing “career”, more specifically, what happened to my thesis and pursuing this topic?

    Here’s a bottom line that I’ve reached: these (largely untold)stories are important. And also this: I’m tired of waiting around to get “permission” to tell this stories. I’m tired of writing and rewriting and revising and guessing at what the gatekeepers (yes, in publishing) want to see in order to publish these stories. And I’m also tired of holding myself back on sharing these stories and truths.

    I’ve been reading Faith Adiele‘s Meeting Faith and this weekend I was lucky enough to be able to take a workshop with her. Her first book was about her time as a Buddhist nun in Northern Thailand, not too far from where I lived in the refugee camp. I’ve learned a lot from her book and her workshop about storytelling. As a result, I’ve been thinking a bit about telling stories about Thailand and also about living in places as an “outsider” and especially as a person in a position of privilege (as I was in Karenni Refugee Camp 3). In addition, Faith taught my fellow writers and me about how to unearth some of these stories from our past. As these things go, right away, I was dreaming about people in the refugee camp, recalling events that I had long ago forgotten.

    Here is one of them.

    I worked from time to time with a young Karenni woman (I’m going to call her Marie here) who was often charged with interacting with English-speaking foreigners. Her English was excellent and she’d grown up in places that were frequently visited by tourists (yes, there were parts of the camp that were open to outsiders because the women there were an “attraction” because of some of their cultural practices; but I’ll have to tell that story some other time). In any case, I ended up connecting her with a journalist from a big US news magazine program. The two of us took this journalist and her camera people around to visit a few different villages over the course of a few days. Marie served as interpreter and was also filling in a lot of the background and historical context. During the course of it, the journalist apparently noticed that Marie often wore make-up. If I recall correctly, she made promises to be in touch with Marie again. And some point, the journalist mentioned sending her a gift from the states. A few weeks later, I was chatting with Marie, getting caught up with her when she mentioned that the journalist had sent her make-up from the states. And it turns out it was used lipsticks, shades that the journalist no longer found fashionable.

    In my dream, I saw Marie and there was a table-full of used make-up that had been set out for people to use.

    Here’s the point at which I feel as though I need to make sense of this story. I need to extract some sort of lesson about how people behave towards one another and the ideas of “need” and “gifts”. But, well, I’m just going to trust that I can send this story out into the world and it will end up where it needs to be. And that it won’t require my further input, evaluation, and assessment. In other words, I’m not going to participate in gatekeeping these stories.

  • All the things that cannot be named.

    Daily writing prompt
    If you could have something named after you, what would it be?
    View all responses

    If I could have something named after me, it would be all the things that we do not have names for, the things we cannot name.

    When your friend asks, “How are you?” and you feel a mixture of contentment lined with a soupçon of ennui and something else which you eludes you, you will say, “Rhena” and your friend will know.

    And when your friend is at a loss for how to console you, comfort you, and give you space, she will say, “Rhena” and you will know.

    When put your earbuds in, you will say, “Hey Siri, play Rhena,” she will play the music you need to hear and it will always be Nina Simone or Lauryn Hill or Salt-n-Pepa or Tracy Chapman or Aretha Franklin or or or or…

    When you see a man pushing his baby in a stroller at a great distance and want to shout “Thank you for bringing your baby out on this beautiful day. I was feeling a little down and then I saw her beautiful black hair, like ravens feathers on that sweet head bobbling on top of her neck while she peered around, trying to take in all the world with her new eyes and isn’t God good?” but he is too far and there isn’t enough time you will whisper “Rhena” and he will know. And he will whisper “Rhena” and you will know that yes, God is good.

    And when you cannot choose what to eat for dinner, you will say, “Rhena” and the server will nod, knowingly.

    And when you want someone to see you but you are so, so tired of speaking and explaining and justifying, you will say, “Rhena” and they will know.

    Until all the people say,

    Rhena!

    Rhena?

    Rhena. Rhena. Rhena.

    rhenarhenarhenarhenarhena.

    Until there comes a day when there is no longer need

    to speak my name.