Messes … By Whitney Farmer – Un Pop Culture

September 8, 2011 Whitney Farmer 6 Comments

Whitney runs a rock music venue on the beach in L.A.. She has an M.B.A, and is looking forward to being able to watch The Weather Channel when her cable is hooked up again.

J.J. had come into the office before the ska/reggae show a few days ago. I had sore muscles and blue bruises and broken fingernails from the move finished the day before, but had zero complaints. After hearing from my NYC sister about how the hurricane had broken apart just a few miles from their place in Brooklyn and left them with a surplus of M&Ms as well as a life-changing sunset, there was much that made me feel grateful.  As much of a mess that I was, J.J. was in worse shape.  She came into my office to weep because she had lost a friend in an unexpected and bad way.

As her beautiful face fractured into tears, my eyes glanced at the clock in an ordinary habit that had little place in extraordinary circumstances. I did the math till my door time and calculated the variables: Our bands had finished sound check and were dining on spaghetti and beer. The bar was ready to open, and the box office was organized. The crowd that would be arriving were a combination of punk rockers and Rastas:  They were likely to show up late, not be spoiled, and might already be high. They were the best possible crowd to have wait if I needed to hold the door for fifteen minutes…

I took my head out of my ordinary routine and put my heart and mind where they needed to be, focused on J.J..

These were problems that I couldn’t fix.  But I could listen to whatever she wanted to tell me.  After a while, there came a point when she was able to gain her equilibrium again and felt able to get home safely.  We embraced in the standard way, but then were caught up in an incident exclusive to L.A.:

Our dangling earrings and club hairdos got tangled together so tightly that we couldn’t pull away from each other. We were stuck cheek-to-cheek.  Unexpectedly, in the next moment, we were stuck together in giggles as well.  After careful and strategic maneuvers, we were able to get detangled with no damage, and we agreed that the laughter was a gift that had smoothed out some of the trauma of tears, bruises and broken fingernails.

As Hurricane Irene swept northward, the news reported that a warm dry wind had come from the southwest out of Texas and took some of the energy out of her violent swirls.  Because people had known she was coming, resources were able to be released and organized in preparation. Systems that were put in place after the tragedy of Katrina were successfully tested. The responses from officials could thankfully be termed ‘appropriate’. And many lives were saved because they were removed from harm’s way.  By the time Irene had hit NYC, she had been demoted to a tropical storm. My sister said that she was even grateful for the tornado her Park Slope neighborhood had had earlier this year because it had taken down many of the weakened and therefore dangerous trees and branches before.

Every storm can leave survivors with a sense of gratitude and sometimes even a thrill over having gone through the extraordinary.  The mess created by a storm ideally removes the debris from a life and turns things around and upside down, giving a new perspective. In times when my head is on straight, I fantasize about the enforced discipline of being in a military family and moving every two years to help prioritize what is essential from what is just baggage. But in the midst of a storm or just an ordinary move from one condo to another, my weaker self can’t imagine surviving the trauma.  But when the sinister mystery of what is in the tangle of boxes and bags is revealed, the dread is gone and that new perspective comes in with a surge of decorating ideas.

It’s the mess and tangles that are the enemies because within them we aren’t able to see what we have and separate it from what we have lost. And it’s tough to rebuild if we can’t find out where we left the hope.  In tangles, mud and bugs have a place to hide. If they aren’t combed out, when fresh water flows through than the muck remains.

I was having a bath in the new place, but the lukewarm water didn’t do much to ease my soreness. And I was already immersed when I realized that the tub hadn’t probably been cleaned well enough by the strangers who had stewed themselves in it before to give me peace of mind.  But in thinking about how to comb through the messes, I noticed unexpected wisdom written on the bottle of my hair conditioner that was built to de-tangle:

 

“…repairs damage that can dull color…conditions and protects while replenishing moisture to help stay soft and healthy…filters to preserve radiance…penetrates deep into troubled areas and controls damage caused by misuse and over-processing…leaving silky brilliance…”

Silky brilliance: That’s the goal. Silk is a unique creation.  It seems delicate and weightless rather than burdensome, and yet it is so insulating that it has been used by the space program to keep astronauts warm during their missions. It is soft, and yet pound for pound it is stronger than steel. It displays and holds color beautifully, and it can shine with reflected light.  That’s the heart to have.

Perhaps life and disaster relief can be strategized from reading a bottle of cream rinse:  Let’s not dull color by not having faith. Do the good and right things by preparing and conditioning and protecting the good stuff. Stay with it to stay soft and healthy and not become first parched and then brittle. Demonstrate self-control by filtering out those things which can dim radiance. Go deep into troubled areas to control damage that has been caused by misuse and fatigue.  Step-by-step, love enters the heart of the storm like a warm wind that takes out the violence of the hurricane.  As the tangles are combed out, what is left is laughter, a magnificent sunset and surplus M&Ms.

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Quote of the Blog, from Pete regarding combing through tangles in 2 Pete 1:5-7: “Make every effort to add to your faith goodness, and to goodness knowledge, and to knowledge self-control; to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, then kindness; then to kindness love.”