I am known
for using strong words
like fuck
to carry my message.
And
I am known
for holding the Word
of God
in the highest esteem.
So
you should know
when I use the word
Jesus
to curse what is awful,
no,
I do not
take the Lord’s name in vain;
it is
the strongest word I know.
I wrote a post for A Deeper Story a couple months ago and was asked in the comments if I’d write more about the walk to the mailbox that I mentioned. The commenter said, “Oh, how we all need a trip like that.” And that stuck with me, because I know it’s true. It was a road-to-Damascus moment, except that for me, it was a walk-to-the-mailbox moment. But it made all the difference in my walk.
So today, please come join me at A Deeper Story. I’d love to tell you a little more about When He Met Me at the Mailbox.
Wearing a cross is like wearing an electric chair. I’ve heard it smugly snickered, tinged with disgust. As if I don’t know about Roman torture and death penalty. As if I think a cross is a charm.
But I do know. I know a cross is death, and I know death. I know the trembling darkness and the wrenching despair, the inconceivable wrongness and the profound isolation.
And this I know, too. I know the Cross is life, and I know life. I know the light of a new moment and the breath rushed into a hollow space, the restoration of what is good and the warmth of closeness.
I have many crosses. Some hang from antique necklaces with a body affixed to the beams– these I run my fingers over because it helps to feel the human form. The Cross is real. Some are smooth stone or wood, no embellishment, no body– these I turn over and over in my palm because their bareness is striking. The Cross is not magical, but it is mystical. And one is inked into my flesh with loops of infinity– this I bare when I am asked, but mostly I tuck it away because it is mine to keep forever. The Cross is personal and eternal.
I know what a cross means, and I know what the Cross means. So let me tell you why I wear a cross, wear it light around my neck, wear it deep in my skin:
It is both the symbol and the essence of my faith– real and mystical, personal and eternal.
What does your tattoo mean to you? Join the link-up hosted by my fellow Deeper Story writer, Kelley Nikondeha!
I’m sharing some of my most intimate, terrifying, beautiful moments with you today at A Deeper Story. Because birth is something we all experience at least once; more, if we’re lucky.
(Also, pictures of my five adorable newborns, including identical twins. So. Click for matching babies!)
As What a Woman is Worth nears its projected May publication date, I’m working on plans for promoting it. And yesterday, as I was thinking about the names I’ve been called throughout my life, it occurred to me how powerful names are in creating identity.
I’m not empowered by “taking back” the word “bitch.” I’m empowered by choosing better words for myself and my fellow females. #WaWiW
— Tamára Lunardo (@tamaraoutloud) April 2, 2013
One of the things I’d like to do in promoting the book is, perhaps through a short video, have women share the ugly names they’ve been called and then share the beautiful names they claim for themselves instead.
So today I am asking for your help brainstorming: What names have you ladies been called, or what names have any of you used or heard used to mislabel a woman?
When you think about these names, consider not only nouns, adjectives, and phrases that have been spoken out loud, but consider what names you have understood to have been called through actions as well; and don’t forget that the names you call yourself count too. For example, I have outright been called a “fucking bitch,” but through another’s action, I’ve been called “disposable,” and I’ve called myself “disgusting” more times than I can count.
I’d so appreciate your help in the comments. And don’t worry that we’re making a list of horrible names and leaving it at that for now– the first step in discarding garbage is uncovering it.
Thank you!
***
ETA: I want to take the time to reply to everyone who has commented here or responded on Twitter and Facebook, but I am finding that when I read your pain, I take some of it on myself (something that has happened numerous times during this whole book process)– and I just can’t form the right words, so I have to just sit with you in the pain, in silence.
So please– know I am grateful for your sharing, know I am aching with you, and know that the words I want to speak to you are coming in this book, which you are helping me get ready to send out into the world.
xo, T.
This is the kind of family I come from: On Good Friday we dress subduedly for service, cry, and meditatively discuss with each other the Stations of the Cross; on Easter Sunday we dress our brightly best for service, jubilantly sing “Christ the Lord is Risen Today,” and feast with extended family. But on Holy Saturday, or Easter Eve, or, perhaps solely in the case of my family, Unholy Saturday, our cups runneth right on over, we go way the hell off-color, and, somehow, we get ready for the next day’s celebration.
And I love my family and my time with them so much, I decided to document this year’s pre-feast festivities with you. Remember/be warned: These are the people whence I came. You’re welcome/I’m sorry.
Mom, Grammie, great aunt, cousin & I are supposed to be cleaning & baking for Easter. So far, we’ve begun with a cocktail break.
— Tamára Lunardo (@tamaraoutloud) March 30, 2013
I’m pretty sure our “beginning break” lasted a good hour and thirteen minutes. We then worked for about ten minutes before ordering pizza. And then we got shit done. But we got it done.
Dad is sick, so our time-honored Italian cookies fall to me. Either it’s my crowning glory, or I eat them all in shame. Either way, I win.
— Tamára Lunardo (@tamaraoutloud) March 31, 2013
Remember these cookies– they factor largely (inappropriately) into the evening’s events.
Baking with anise makes me want Jagermeister. Think the fam would notice a li’l swap?
— Tamára Lunardo (@tamaraoutloud) March 31, 2013
My mom just read that last tweet and said, “You’re such a jackass.” Easter Eve, y’all.
— Tamára Lunardo (@tamaraoutloud) March 31, 2013
Now she wants you to know she’s pouring me an amaretto to make up for it. “But you’re still a jackass.”
— Tamára Lunardo (@tamaraoutloud) March 31, 2013
Turns out amaretto works quite well as both a baking accompaniment and a device with which to lessen the sting of your mother’s wildly unfounded insults.
Listening to kickass singer-songwriters while baking. Mom: “It’s funny you have such a beautiful voice but listen to people who can’t sing.”
— Tamára Lunardo (@tamaraoutloud) March 31, 2013
Don’t even ask who the amazingly gifted people were that my mom just insulted. It’s too embarrassing that she still holds her music-school-dropout daughter’s talent in such hyperbolic esteem.
Mom is trying to find place settings for 28 people. She has abandoned her Merlot and moved straight to scotch. Get it done, Mama.
— Tamára Lunardo (@tamaraoutloud) March 31, 2013
While my mom is busy figuring out where in the hell people have hidden from her the elusive last four forks, I am wracking my brain for memories of AP and/or Chicago style and agonizing over whether scotch is capitalized when referring to an alcoholic beverage.
Me: “Let’s see if you like these people.” Mom: “Well can they SING?” It’s @teganandsara. And now Mom is doing an impression of “Nineteen.”
— Tamára Lunardo (@tamaraoutloud) March 31, 2013
No singer-songwriters, no indie rock. My mom and I just do not understand each other’s musical tastes. (Later in the night I intentionally switch to country, her least favorite genre, and get no amusing irritation in return at all. She has beaten me at my own game. And perhaps accurately categorized me as jackass.)
Mom: “Now I have to do baskets! I’m switching back to Merlot.” I’ll be sure to tell Twitter. I’m sure they’re drinking along with us by now.
— Tamára Lunardo (@tamaraoutloud) March 31, 2013
And if you’re not drinking, now’s the time. My mom’s imagination is about to get very Hannibal Lecter.
Mom: “Is she singing about getting SKIN?!” Me: “What? No! She’s singing about wanting her lover back.” Mom: “Put it back on.” …
— Tamára Lunardo (@tamaraoutloud) March 31, 2013
. @teganandsara: “When I get a little scared.” Mom: “That!” Me: [repeat line] Mom: “Well she needs to enunciate.”
— Tamára Lunardo (@tamaraoutloud) March 31, 2013
To Mom’s credit, I guess that is about getting skin. Just not in the horrifyingly sadistic way she imagined. OMG.
— Tamára Lunardo (@tamaraoutloud) March 31, 2013
We maybe are both beginning to lose our grip a little now because even after this, I leave preparations for the children’s activity to her.
Mom, writing clues for my kids to find their baskets: “Do they have to rhyme? All I can think to rhyme with duck is…” Me: “LUCK?!”
— Tamára Lunardo (@tamaraoutloud) March 31, 2013
Finally the famed cookies are done, look mostly like when my dad makes them, and smell like an Italian bakery, which is a less-sacrilegious way of saying:
Wow, you guys. I’m not saying it’s an empty tomb or anything, but my Italian cookies are pretty effin’ miraculous.
— Tamára Lunardo (@tamaraoutloud) March 31, 2013
Me: “I want to show my cookies. I want them to see you too.” Mom: “No way! Oh, look, your cleavage! You should call it Cookies & Cleavage.”
— Tamára Lunardo (@tamaraoutloud) March 31, 2013
I think I’ll just call it Italian Cookies. (#IYKWIM) And with that, Mom & I are DONE. Happy Easter, y’all! twitter.com/tamaraoutloud/…
— Tamára Lunardo (@tamaraoutloud) March 31, 2013
I have a new post up at A Deeper Story today! Please join me for A Conversation Between Friends.
I had the pleasure of hosting Allison Weiss and her band this weekend when they stopped in my city on their March Radness tour. They put on a great show and are great people, as evidenced by the fact that I gave Allison my last Mega Stuf Oreo. You don’t do that for just anyone, let me tell you.
Allison played my favorite songs of hers at the show, and she talked a little bit about breakups before one of them– “Making it Up.” And I thought about how, maybe more than any other topic, breakups are such a common theme in songwriting.
The two things in life that we seem most in need of giving expression to are the having and the losing of love. We write from our overflow, and we write from our emptiness. And we listen to those songs because they give voice to the wide but universal range of feelings that each of us has about love and its loss.
I hope your heart is happy today. And if it’s not, I hope you’ll fill it with some rad music. And eat a Mega Stuf Oreo.
Listen:
Let me know:
What are your favorite breakup songs?
 | youhavemyword on Lord’s Name, Not in… |
 | Lindsay on Lord’s Name, Not in… |
 | David on Lord’s Name, Not in… |
 | Mom on Lord’s Name, Not in… |
| Mom on We Sing Hope |
