10.25.06

A few weeks ago I crossed another movie off my Best Picture to watch list.  While I didn’t love it as much as I had hoped, I did feel that Out of Africa had some significant things to say about relationships between men and women.  And while I tend to put a lot out there regarding my life, I have been particularly guarded concerning my own relationship issues or lack thereof … the internet is not the appropriate forum.  However, something Meryl Streep’s character said in the movie has remained with me, and I feel it deserves to be expanded upon.

 

Karen Blixen moves to Kenya after marrying the brother of her lover out of sheer convenience.  Her marriage inevitably falls apart as her new husband cheats on her repeatedly, even infecting her with syphilis.  In the midst of all this she falls in love with Denys, a rugged, free spirited hunter who provides all the adventure and affection Karen could hope for.  As their relationship deepens, Karen begins to battle her own expectations and desires for the relationship knowing they do not mirror her new lover’s.  As progressive as she is, at her core she still desires the one thing Denys will not give: commitment.

 

Karen’s love for Denys compels her to live life on his terms.  He moves in with her, coming and going as he pleases, always leaving her wanting more.  I don’t doubt that he loves her; he just loves himself more.  In one heated discussion Karen says, “I used to think that there was nothing that you really wanted, but that’s not it, is it?  You want to have it all!”  Perhaps the older I get, the more jaded I become in regard to guys, but I can’t help affirming that statement with a hearty amen. 

 

I recently read an article entitled “Not Your Buddy” that seeks to address some problems with close male/female “friendships.”  First I would like to say that I am in no way against friendships between men and women.  I believe they are healthy and beneficial.  However, I do have a problem with “friendships” that from the outside could be mistaken as dating, although no such discussion has been had on the inside.  There’s this new phenomenon called “hanging out” in which a guy can initiate all sorts of contact without running the risk of rejection or having to offer any sort of commitment … it’s that whole “having it all” thing.  In her article Suzanne Hadley writes, “Single men and women are failing each other. Uncommitted intimate friendships may satiate immediate needs, but they lead to frustration and heartache. Not to mention, for singles ready for marriage, these ‘friendships’ waste time and energy.”

 

My favorite line from Out of Africa comes near the end of that heated conversation.  Karen tells Denys, “I have learned a thing that you haven’t.  There are some things worth having, but they come at a price.  And I want to be one of them.”  Amen, sister friend.  I’m not saying that women should be considered as pretty pretty princesses sitting on pedestals having their every wish and whim catered to.  I’m saying that women do themselves a great disservice by persisting in relationships in which men do not honor them.   Women are worth the pursuit, but it seems as though neither sex believes it.

10.18.06

So there was an article about my brother in my hometown paper a couple days ago that has been picked up by the Associated Press.  I’m probably breaking all sorts of copyright law, but I wanted to repost it here.

See Daniel Run

Leg braces, crutches don’t deter seventh-grader

Franklin Middle School seventh-grader Daniel Reed, using crutches, runs toward the finish line during Franklin’s cross country meet with Clack Middle School at Sherrod Residential Park on Friday. Reed, who has cerebral palsy, is often followed by his coach, Jerry Johnson, and many of his teammates along the one-mile course as a means of support. 

By Ken Ellsworth / ellsworthk@reporternews.com
October 16, 2006

Daniel Reed is a hero to everyone but himself. He’s a seventh-grade student at Franklin Middle School, a straight-A student and a cross country runner – never mind that he runs with crutches and leg braces because he’s afflicted with cerebral palsy.He comes in last at every race, but every race is a victory.

”He’s run every race and finished every one,” said his coach, Jerry Johnson, after Saturday’s race with Clack Middle School. ”There’s no quit in him.”

Johnson can’t talk about Daniel without crying. Almost nobody can.

The tears are not for sympathy for Daniel, but for Daniel’s courage and determination. He doesn’t mind losing. He only wants to do his best, and he does just that. The temptation for others is to be too protective of Daniel, and everybody knows Daniel would hate that. He wants to be treated like everybody else and excel on his own.

Of course Daniel is remarkable, and so he is not treated like everybody else.

On Friday, Daniel crossed the finish line with his coach, his dad Jerry Daniel Reed, an Abilene Reporter-News staff writer, and several of his teammates following behind him. After his teammates finish their races, they go back out onto the course and get behind Daniel. They cheer him on as they trot and walk behind him. That way he doesn’t really finish last.

”Go Daniel!” they yell.

”It inspires me. They are a motivator,” Daniel said of his teammates, shortly after the mile run and shortly after he had caught his breath.

Obviously, it’s a shared relationship. He inspires his teammates.

On Saturday, on the hilly, sometimes rocky terrain on the grounds of the Sherrod Apartments near Abilene Christian University, Daniel finished the mile cross country run in 29 minutes. That was 23 minutes behind the winner, who ran the race in six minutes, and 18 minutes behind the last finisher before Daniel. It didn’t matter. Daniel was a winner, too.

”He did good, finished well and didn’t stop once,” Johnson said.

Daniel begged to differ.

”I stopped once to scratch my arm,” he said. Of course, to do that he had to put aside one crutch.

No Franklin teammates or their parents left the scene of the meet until Daniel finished, unless they were urgently needed elsewhere.

”Go Daniel!” echoed across the hilly terrain from the beginning to the end of the meet.

When Daniel crossed the finish line, his shoulders were rolling hard as he worked to control his borrowed crutches, because his own had broken under the tremendous strain he puts on them. His face was grim, but joyful.

”I’m tired, but it is good to have finished,” Daniel said. ”It feels really great.”

At the start, Daniel was 300 yards behind the wispy, fleet-footed, energetic pack of seventh-grade boys before he reached 100 yards. He kept running hard and was undiscouraged – probably using twice the energy to move three or four times more slowly than the fleet ones.

As he neared the finish line, the cheers increased.

”Go Daniel! Go Daniel! Go Daniel!” Some wiped away the tears.

”Every meet we’ve gone to, the tears roll. I’m so proud of Daniel. We’re so proud of him,” Johnson said.

Daniel is the son every parent would love to have. Jerry and Lynn Reed (Lynn is an Austin Elementary School teacher) are justly proud of Daniel, but don’t lay it on too thickly.

”Daniel doesn’t like too much attention,” Lynn said.

They trace Daniel’s wish to run back to Joy Beckett, Daniel’s physical education teacher at Bonham Elementary and to Daniel’s uncle and aunt, Jay and Kay Hufstedler. Jay is the girls track coach at Amarillo High School. Kay won the state high school championship in the mile for Ozona in 1981.

”My thoughts were that he (Daniel) would do everything the other students did, whether it was basketball or hula hoops to the best of his ability,” Beckett said. ”He did and didn’t ever complain, even though he had to do some things differently. For instance, he did hula hoops around his neck. He was a great person to work with.”

Jay Hufstedler invited Daniel to work out with the girls track team during a couple of summers when Daniel stayed with them.

”He just seemed to enjoy it,” Hufstedler said. ”He never complained that it wasn’t fair.”

Lynn Reed said she remembers one meet in particular.

”What touches me most is the support of those other kids,” she said. ”One time Daniel was about to quit. Then they started screaming for him. They were cheering him on, and he heard the roar of the crowd and just kept going.”

Daniel has a sense of humor, too.

After one meet, he wryly asked, ”Do you have ribbons for 26th place?”

Daniel is active in his church and Boy Scouts, camping, hiking and doing all he can. In the fifth grade, he scored perfectly on the TAKS test. Last year he missed only two questions.

After Friday’s meet, Daniel sat resting on a cooler. To say the least, he was modest.

”I owe it to God,” he said. ”I owe it to my family and to my friends who support me.”

This story was edited by night city editor Patti Steele and copy edited by Jeff Wolf. The headline was written by Ken Ellsworth.

10.10.06

Last week as I was walking across campus, I saw one of my residents walking into the library.  Her name is Hayley, and I began to think about how many Hayley/Hailey/Halie/Haylees there are in the world … it’s a very popular name.  Then I thought about how I would probably never name one of my children Hayley or really any name that ends in a long “e.”  Then I thought about how I might want to keep these thoughts to myself, considering their potential for offense … I mean with all the Hayleys out there in the world.  This made me think about the singles minister at my church whose daughter’s name is Hayley which in turn reminded me of a comment he recently made about having children.  He said that he and his wife’s motto is to never be outnumbered, hence their two kids.  Then I began to think about children and how it is that couples come to an agreement on how many kids to have.  What if one wants more than the other?  What if a husband only wanted two kids, but a wife wanted four?  What if, after agreeing on two kids, the wife accidentally gets pregnant again?  The husband, knowing that his wife wanted more kids, might wonder if it was really an accident.  And if it was, the wife can’t help but wonder if her husband mistrusts her.

 

And then a song lyric popped into my head.  “Put your mistrust so far behind.”  No idea what song it was from, but I could sing it nonetheless.  I seriously don’t know what people did before Google, but after searching the phrase, I was taken to a site about misheard song lyrics.  The song I was searching for is Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” and the correct lyric is “Mucho mistrust, love’s gone behind.”  I happen to like my version better.

 

On a ski trip in high school, my van listened to the Toto song “Africa” over and over and over (it became our theme song) and it took us awhile to decipher the chorus.  Was it, “I guess it rains down in Africa,” or perhaps, “There are no trains down in Africa,” or even better, “Varicose veins down in Africa”?  (The actual line, or so I’ve been told, is “I bless the rains down in Africa.”)  Then there’s the story of my friend who liked to sing in the shower as a child (Um, and who didn’t?  My favorite shower song as a child was the fast version of “Glory of Love” from Beaches).  She was a little confused on the Batman theme song and sang from the top of her lungs “duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh, nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh, BASTARD!”  That was until her dad banged on the bathroom door, questioning her vocal stylings.

 

So here’s the question (and a little test to see how dead Xanga really is): What’s one lyric you have been sorely mistaken on?