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The Archives–Multivitamins (and alien Dentists)
I realized today wasn’t the first posting about dentists. Check out the Alien Dentists and their torturous devices on this BONUS ARCHIVE POST! Yeaaaah!
http://joelgerlach.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/multivitamins-and-alien-dentists/
Dentists
So I graduated.
Today I had to go to the dentist. Which was a source of much disdain to a young impressionable boy such as myself. I hate dentists. To describe to you my inner hatred, I illustrate the following story:
My teeth are crooked. The front two were pushed together when my third top left tooth came in, the beastly monster that it is. The resulting battle for dominance in my mouth was won by my right invasive tooth; the others condemned to some squeezing to make room. Well, this warzone of space was a troubling issue to my local dentist office. They said that in order to fix my massive problems, I should get braces.
DO WHAT?! These days, if you have plaque on your teeth, it feels like dentists tell you that you should get braces. ”Doctor, I tripped over a stump and broke my toe.” ”Hmm.” The doctor says as he scratches his brow. ”I’m afraid the only thing I can do is get you braces.” ”But… that has nothing to do with my toe!” ”Yes, I understand. But your teeth need them merely because you exist.”
I was saved from braces by stoutly proclaiming that I would not put those nasty metal things in my teeth, and that if people would learn to like me despite my not-so-perfect smile, the dentist could do the same. They gave in, and decided to get me a retainer that had a key in it that I was supposed to turn twice a week in order to stretch out my ‘palette’, thus making more room for my compacted molars. It was perfect, they said, because I would only need to wear them at night. Excellent. I’m on it.
Well, it was nice while it lasted. All month of it. I was supposed to have it for two years, and after the first month, I was so sick of it that I no longer wore it. I would put it on at night to show mom that I had it, but then I would take it off. Goodness, I hated that thing. The dentist, of course, knew of my deceit every time I would come in to their evil dentistry lair, because my teeth showed no sign of improvement despite “that wonderful first month.” Don’t worry, you dentist masters, I’ve fooled you again. I like my teeth just the way they are.
Meanwhile, back to my narration. I ended up going to the dentist for a cleaning today. They were wonderfully cordial, and my teeth were actually in great shape. The funny thing was that these evil wizards of the teeth were actually excited to see me there. ”You graduated?” One of the nurses (except whatever they are…for teeth), said to me. She had been the same person who knew my family all the way from the first time we went there to get our dentistry needs ten years ago. She had watched me since I was a young boy grow older, go off to school, and graduate. ”We’re excited to see your name on the big screen.” She said as she finished cleaning my teeth. Even the great Dentist Doctor Mr. Meyers told me that he was proud to see me graduate.
“When you’re rich someday, and have lots of money to spend…” he said carefully… “You might try and get some adult braces. They’ll help your smile a lot.”
Some things never change.
<END>
5-minute post
I have 4:45 to write this post. Minutes:Seconds, that is. For this is how long my hotbag 2.0 will be in the microwave before I grab it and head off into much needed slumber.
Graduation practice is tomorrow. Cobalt, Logan, Marc and I will all head into the mayhem of the other students’ graduation, looking forward to practicing our moment of walking across the stage and proclaiming to the world that we have enough stamina to fight four years for a piece of paper they don’t even give us on graduation day. We have to wait for it in the mail. Go figure.
So there’s plenty of emotions swirling around inside of my impressionable head. Not to mention the already cataclysmic tidal wave of thoughts and feelings that are having a party anyway. Well, the more the merrier. Truly, though, this imminent graduation is getting closer with every second. Soon it will be time to say goodbye.
Of course there’s always goodbyes. There seem to be so much in my life. I apologize for being repetitive, but I seriously do not like all this goodbye nonsense that seems to be plaguing my recent years. Enough of goodbye. When will people just stay put?!
I leave you, dear readers, with a question. If something is good, is it worth fighting for, even if it means changing who you are?
Ah, the 4:45 is over. And so I shall post this entry. Goodnight, all. Thanks for spending five minutes with me.
Caroling
We went caroling tonight as a group. All of us from the campus house trudging around in the snow (I was wearing my chacos and socks like a total doofus, got my feet all wet and cold), shivering from the winter chill, but together, and singing. It was great. There certainly was moments where our caroling went unappreciated, like the few empty houses we sang to, and the man who turned out the porch light to us when we were singing, only to notice a menorah in the front window. Oops!
But there were two instances that caught my heart. Us college students, singing in the snow, and how we must have appeared never crossed my mind until the third or fourth house we approached. We sang to a father and a son, who loved our music, and then asked for a reprise (of course, I said goodbye and everyone told me that we were singing more. Oops again.) But then, an elderly woman stepped around the edge of the door, wrapped in a robe and sweater to keep her warm. We started singing again. I glanced a look at her and got choked up.
Her eyes were teary. Lost in some distant memory of a time past where carolers were common during the winter season.
Cars drove by in the background, electroluminescent displays screaming data. iPhones and Blackberrys keeping people connected. Shopping lists keeping the grocery stores busy. A sense of family that brings you home to sit in front of a TV together. A reflection upon society as a whole so lost in itself that carolers fill the streets less frequently now. Send an E-Card of elves singing Wish You A Merry Christmas instead. That makes people laugh.
I wonder what it was like for her. I wonder how much caroling that woman did when she was young and vibrant like the college students who braved the sub freezing temperatures tonight. I wonder how much more they delighted in bringing genuine cheer the old fashioned way. As she looked at us, and I saw those budding tears, I felt… I felt… I felt like if I let that thought run too much further I’d cry too. No, I perked back up and kept singing. But here as I sit and digest the idea of the fond memory of carolers, and how much less we do it, it makes me want to hold onto that tradition even more.
Cheers to all the carolers out there who risk the cold to show some random household that they care. I want to keep doing that, so someday I can remember when I was a young person proclaiming carols to others, as the generations after me sing those beautiful words to my old ears.
Belonging
There I was, walking into the pottery shop with my dear friends the Williams. Each year, during the Christmas season, this little Brevard, NC pottery shop opens its doors and invites the public in for a free fired mug, the sizes and shapes and colors as varied and unique as snowflakes. It was my turn to find one, a perfect cup that I knew would call my name.
Many assorted cups greeted me as I looked along the shelves. I grabbed a few–drawn to the blue hues–but knew they weren’t right. I almost felt like Indiana Jones searching for the Holy Grail as my fingertips wandered along the cups. Which one to choose? Finally I found it. It was on the third shelf, shoulder length to me. It was a simple upright cup, blue as the sky, with ridges embedded along its outside and a solid fired clay bottom. Looking around, I grabbed it, felt it in my hand, and knew it was love at first sight. This cup was mine. I was going to take it home and remember that little pottery cup. It was going to belong to me.
There are few times in this world when I can remember a strong sense of belonging. Unlike the cup, which will receive its fair share of loving adoration, I have always felt out of place. When I was younger, I remember trying desperately to belong to the older crowd. I would volunteer for church related things that adults would do normally. When I was seven or eight, I filled out a card at my small Baptist church in Oregon saying that I wanted to become a Deacon. The church, realizing that a seven year old was a little young to fill the job of deaconship, allowed me to be the offering usher instead. Once during a service, it was my turn. And I was the best youngest usher they probably ever had. Growing older, I felt uneasy with my contemporaries, desperately trying to be the ‘funny guy’ so that I was liked and asked to stick around. I always had my posse of faithful followers, and I’m so glad they chose to hang around with me. But it never felt like I belonged. It always felt so pushed.
In college, I got some small tastes of belonging with my campus ministry and even in the crowd at the Digital Media Center. Though there were some times when I felt alienated from those places, while the next day I felt essential to the operation. I tried a variety of roles, introducing new things and being the head of friendship groups, only to have those fluctuate back and forth, some failing completely. Even in the article entitled “The gathering of the team”, I alluded to my strong wishing to be part of a core group, the closeness of which would bring us through anything.
Being a part of the “Manpartment” has been a huge part of my rumbling insecurities. The original three part Man Team of Logan, Cobalt, and I was great, and got even greater with the addition of Travis Hall a year later. The manpartment has always stuck through many things; from movie nights and cooking to relationship frustrations and snoring sleepers! Not to mention the ever-steady presence of my best friend Paul, who has been integral in my life since my first semester here. Looking back on these times, I am grateful.
But what about a bigger sense of belonging? Something more long term? Is there such a thing? This last weekend with the aforementioned family in Brevard has been one of the sweetest weekends I’ve had in my life. But that, as well, is temporary and fleeting. My heart cries out to hold onto those moments, and yet they slip out of my grasp like the screaming heroine is lost down a cliff face when the hero just can’t hold any longer. Sound like a horrible thing? It is in my mind! These feelings of belonging do their best to disappear down the cliff face no matter how hard I hold on. Will I ever find that place–that people group–that wife–who will stick with me through thick and thin? To adventure and to wait? To be still and to go? Etc. Etc. Etc.
I sure hope so. I’d love to feel like I belong. A man once prophesied over me that someday I would find a place where I would be content and satisfied like few people have ever experienced before. I’d sure like that to happen. Contentment and satisfaction are words far removed from the narrative of my life. Perhaps this will come with belonging.
Still no word on jobs yet.
Till then, I have a beautiful little blue pottery mug that I’m going to go love on. At least something knows it belongs.
Cognition
It isn’t always that I find myself without words to say. Today, however, is one of them. Of course, the irony is that I’m using words to write that I don’t have the words to write, but nevertheless it is true. Today, this monday, this last monday of true classes which conceivably could be the last ones ever, holds no great stories to tell. If anything, it takes more than it gives. Oh, woe to you, Monday.
Today is a day of feeling. There are way too many ways I experience emotion throughout the course of the day. Waking up a little late, for example, than my body’s natural clock usually arises me, puts me in a mood of sorrow. You see, I hate to waste daylight. I am more than happy to waste nighttime hours, for there’s nothing much to see during them anyway. But daylight–when the world is up and moving–I hate to be sleeping through it. ”I missed out on something.” I tell myself as I wake up a little late. Who knows what it might have been. Something extraordinary, probably. But this morning, it was just snow flurries. Nothing more.
The snow flurries of today are cyclic; on and off they go without being consistent. A lack of consistency in the snow makes me frusterated, as I would like the weather to decide what it’s going to do. Snow, being one of the more lovely weather conditions, is perfectly welcome to flurry its way down, just as long as it decides to keep doing so. My life being a roller coaster in its own part could be much better if the weather were more consistent. Perhaps a tropical climate might suit me. But then again, I don’t mind the weather. It can change all it wants.
For really, what I have to deal with, is my mind. Perhaps one of the reasons why I grow frusterated with moody snow is that I, myself, am moody at heart. Search through the archives of Elementum, and you’ll find that my emotions are as numerous as snowflakes. Which comes in handy when I have to express scenes through various forms of visual or audible mediums, like the monochrome in the film noir scene (in the above header) conveys gloom, while my ukulele music is tropical and warm. Feeling things deeply, I believe, gives me an edge. It allows me to feel.
Continue with me on my ramblings, and perhaps we’ll both find some place to land this blog posting. Today is the last week. Dead week. The week where there’s so much to be done and not enough time to do it. A problem, for sure, as I do not have a DeLorean or a way to extend my time for studying. The realization that time is running short before my graduation and the imminent goodbyes I know I’ll have to say grow closer with each day, and yet not finding time enough in the day to get things done (like writing coherent blog postings) creates a conflict of extraordinary magnitude that cannot be rationalized! In a sense, I’m freaking out!
Combine in the mixture of loss, of having to say goodbye to people I love, and have invested in.
I paused for a while after writing the above sentence. Ah, the proverbial nerve center of a host of emotions! This word, loss, is a powerful one. Life is full of goodbyes, isn’t it? If you remember from my posting The Gathering of the Team Part 1, the concept of people sticking it together through thick and thin is a very important one for me. And to let go and say goodbye is something that breaks my heart. So to leave the wonderful friends here in Johnson City is like saying goodbye to a close team of people. And that’s going to be very hard indeed.
Writing again is refreshing. Retraining my brain to be expressive through words is a delightful change of pace from my visual medium of expression (film and vfx shots). Thanks to you all who read this every day. Elementum exists because you guys read it. I get the blog statistics every day. We’re averaging around 50 hits per day, which is a very encouraging number. If nobody read this, I’d probably only journal.
Yikes! What a blathering mess this posting is! But it’s a journey of discovering where I’m at and what I feel. Thanks for going along with me. I’ll be sure to write something more cognitive next post.
Till then,
~joel
P.S. If you like reading elementum every day, but forget it exists in the world, you can subscribe by entering your email address in the right hand part of the screen. Elementum to your inbox every posting?! Sounds like a deal to me!
David
What would it be like to be a musical shepherd, sitting with your flock again, after a man came and anointed you as king? What would it be like to be living in the fields outside of a small village, knowing you were called to greatness, but having to be a shepherd for a time? Then, what would it be like to look back dozens of years later upon your time as a shepherd, to dream of when life was simple before the responsibilities of being a king? During the time of shepherding, was there doubt about the calling dwelling so predominately over your head? Is there a problem with being a small shepherd and yet dreaming of being a king?
If David, one of the great Kings of the Old Testament Bible were alive right now, I’d ask him to answer these questions as best he could. For these things weigh heavily in my mind. Is there a problem with greatness? Or are some called to it as others are called to things? Can one be divinely lead to be an influential person, or would a person who strives to be influential and great be considered proud and haughty?
As I’m looking over the brink of the coming changes in my life, I can’t help but wonder about this shepherd pasture I’ve been in for the last three years. Johnson City, Tennessee is an incredible mountain city, and it has been the place I call home for this last period of life. But soon, Johnson City will become embedded in the memories of yesterday, only to be replaced by the big things to come tomorrow. This is like skydiving. All it takes is the step off the comfort and security of a plane. You know it’s gonna be awesome when you jump, but first you have to physically do it. I’m getting to the point where it’s time to jump off the plane. Am I excited? Sure! But what weighs me down is this desire of mine to do great things. Is it right?
Singapore. An island centered on the equator, sandwiched around Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Filled with people and cultures and cities, Singapore is a whole new world. And I may be stepping into it. I have been in contact with an employee of ILM, which is Industrial Light and Magic. ILM, a studio built by George Lucas for the original Star Wars and which has since been creating industry-breaking visual effects since its inception, is the most prestigious studio I can think of next to WETA, the group who did Lord of the Rings. Working at ILM would be paramount. ILM opened a new studio in 2006, which has since grown so much that they’re looking to hire a hundred new people by the start of 2011. The best of the best, ILM Singapore is oozing with adventure. It was created to compliment its San Francisco, California counterpart by ‘waking up’ when San Francisco ‘goes to sleep’, thus creating a 24 hour studio producing movies. What’s better is that the groups who work at ILM Singapore take breaks inbetween movies to travel around the area. Getting to work on top-budget films while traveling around continents during a break sounds better than anything I could ever dream of. Could this be where I’m being called?
Oh, I do hope so. Like King David, (whose name I share in my middle name), I want to go as big as I can. I’ve been shepherded by Johnson City and Chattanooga for all my life so far. Then it’s out into the boyish adventure stage, where I can live life to the fullest now that all my strings have been cut. David lived a life of adventure and danger and sorrow… fleeing for his life for years. But even that was in preparation for kingship. And God-willing, I would love to have a kingship of my own. To be a Director of a film that audiences around the nation can see is a dream of mine since I was young. Could this be the great path to that dream? This first step off the plane? This movement from sheep-herder to adventurer? Granted, it’s romanticized, but what part of my life isn’t?! I mean, come on! This is who I am!
And I’m excited. Could this be the event that begins my life’s career? Gosh, I sure hope so. ILM Singapore would be a dream come true. That’s where I would love to go. Let’s see how God decides, for like David, I am eternally indebted to him.
What do you think, oh readers of Elementum? Wanna jump off the plane with me and see where this goes?
~joel.david
Elementum on Ice
Slicing. Metal on ice, swishing back and forth. Carrying momentum. A turn, a skid, slight wobble. Correction…. it’s over. Right leg out, smooth turn. Bend body over, push back and forth with long legs, propelling forward. Gliding. Leg out, dodge the slow ones, come around again. Freedom embedded in the cold. Flying but bound to the ground. I found a new love in life. Ice Skating.
I have been ice skating before. I was seven years old, back in the small city of Medford, Oregon. It was before the move to Tennessee in 1999. I remember ice skating then, falling on my butt a few times, but remembering the gracefulness even a seven year old could have on ice. When I entered the ring thirteen years later, I was the same little boy again. Except this time, I vowed not to fall.
After joining my friends at the ice skating ticketbooth, I grabbed my skates and rushed giddily to the seats in front of the rink. Music was playing. It was like a dream was waiting for me out on the carved and rugged ice. I strapped my rented skates on my feet and prepared to go. They were loose though the laces were tight. But that was okay. I followed my roommate Logan on the ice, feeling slightly wobbly at first. My skates–roughened by the use of thousands before me–struggled to find a grip on the ice. For a split second, I thought I wasn’t going to like it, that I was going to fail miserably and loose my dignity like I had when I was little. But then, the feeling of thinking drifted away. ”To heck with it all.” I thought and dug in. Just like roller blading, I pushed my feet back and forth along the ice. My first time on the ice in thirteen years, and I was loving it.
The next hour and a half passed by blissfully. I was in a dream, skating over the ice. Never once did I fall. Not once! Even when my friends, determined to take me out, would collide into me, or grab my legs, or push me forward, I always kept my balance. I always could skate away. And, I was the fastest one out there. Not five minutes on the ice and I could shoot across the rink. For once, my long gangly body became at peace with its movements, and I felt graceful as ever. Both Logan and ET commented on my gracefulness afterward. Always a steady balance, and great bursts of speed. I felt joy out on the rink, and everything else faded away. There were moments where the children and couples and groups were merely things to dodge in the pursuit of ultimate speed. I could picture myself escaping some great enemy, dodging rocks and trees and boulders in order to outrun calamity. But at last, I was doing something that my entire body, mind, and soul loved.
I was on the ice. And I was having a blast. But alas, my time was limited, and in what seemed like twenty minutes (though really an hour had passed), our time was up and we had to leave. I looked back at the rink one last time before exiting the pavilion. Goodbye, ice. I said. We’ll meet again.
There’s nothing greater than feeling like you belong somewhere, like I felt when I realized I belonged on the ice. Of course, when that joyous ride had faded and I was back on the ground again, I realized that I was stuck again being Joel Gerlach. Despite my union with the ice, I couldn’t take it everywhere I went. It was back to fumbling my way through life, making decisions that don’t go smooth, cutting and falling and spilling all over the place in my failure to make a decent decision. But someday, I hope to find my place of belonging. My place of gracefulness. A place where my life-skates won’t let me down as I dip and turn and speed.
In the meantime, I may be going to Singapore…..
~joel
Of Dogs and Men
I saw the most curious thing on my drive home from school. It had been a particularly long Friday–as Fridays tend to be–and I was driving home thinking how much I’d like to eat food. After all, my morning breakfast is usually a cup of oatmeal that I expect will last me until 5 PM that evening. Which, often times, does not do a very good job. So I was thinking about a tuna fish sandwich that I knew was calling my name when the car in front of me put on its breaks. I slowed down, seeing a line of a few cars stopped ahead. Traffic in my lane slowed to a crawl. I could see the road ahead of me clearly, and figured it was a recent accident. The car three in front of me pulled into oncoming traffic and then continued up the road. The car two in front of me did the same. I saw a gray Honda CRV pulled up on the curve just as soon as I heard the sounds of yelling. Wanting to be inconspicuous, I opened the sunroof. It sounded like there was screaming and yelling and crying going on. Ooh. This might be a dire situation.
As the Honda in front of me pulled into oncoming traffic and sped ahead, I let my curiosity force my decision to drive really slow. I crept my Honda along. I saw in the oncoming traffic a green truck pulled to the side. There was an older woman there, looking off to my side of the street with her hands to her face. There was a large shirtless man sipping on a soft drink right next to the truck, watching. Onlookers were walking to stare. My view was blocked by the gray Honda so I couldn’t see what was happening. Yet. I crept closer, the sounds of distress getting louder. A police car sped up to the scene and the officer jumped out. He ran past the gray Honda and started pulling on something. Yikes! Had someone been hit? There was a man and a woman there trying to grab at something moving. The yelling sounds were loud now, and I thought that perhaps someone had gotten into a fight AFTER they had been hit by the gray honda or the green truck. Speaking of the truck, the woman was starting to cry. Surely it must have been an accident! Then, the police officer grabbed on a pink leash and pulled, and a collar slipped off and flew into the road. WHAT?! Now there was a dog involved?
Okay, I told myself, this is like the Dr. Seuss book “To think that I saw it on Mulberry Street.” Wait till I got home. ”You’ll never believe what happened, guys! This gray truck hit this person and then the woman inside the truck started crying so the guy in the gray honda jumped out to beat up the idiotic pedestrian for shocking the truck woman and then this pink leashed dog ran in the midst of them so it was a three-for-all when the Police officer had to jump in and intervene!” I could see the headlines now! But as oncoming traffic finally disappeared and I could ride around the corner, I was disappointed. The police officer and another man were trying to break up a dog fight. There was this brown mutt dog that had a death grip on the leg of a fancy Collie–who I bet was wearing the pink leash. The police officer started spraying the mutt with pepper spray, but the dog had not let its grip go. I turned to look at gray truck lady, and I imagine she was merely a witness, but come on lady–were tears really necessary? The overweight shirtless man stopped sipping his coke, shrugged, and walked down the street as the two dogs finally broke apart. I avoided Pink Leash and drove up the street, seeing the Collie go limp running across the road with the brown mutt chasing it, followed by the policeman and apparently the owner of the dog. They ran past gray truck lady who was probably in hysterics over the recent turn of events.
I guess you know nothing much happens in your town when a dog fight draws the crowds, the police, and emotional onlookers. Wow.
Unlike the dog fight, my mind has been soaring in the clouds today. Dreams of California, or ILM Singapore, or wild adventures beyond imagination have been my companions today despite my busyness. Last night, Paul practiced his live nursing checkup examination thingy on me in preparation for the actual test he preformed in front of a teacher this morning. But last night, I got to hook up his stethoscope to my ears and listen to my heartbeat.
There it was. Dah dump. Dah dump. Dah dump. Instantly glad I had one in the first place, my thoughts turned to how precious a heartbeat is. Hearing my own heartbeat reminded me that I’m still alive. Despite all that’s happened to me over the course of my life–the extraordinary experiences and the bitter letdowns–I am alive. My heart is still beating. My lifeblood is still soaring through my veins, and making it possible for me to dream or imagine at all. Thanks, heart, for all you do. I’m glad you keep me alive.
If you’ve never heard your own heartbeat, find one of your nursing/doctor friends and ask them if you can borrow their stethoscope. Hearing that you are alive… is a beautiful thing.
~joel
