i believe in miracles

I don't really distinguish between miracles and science. To me, science (especially medical science) is miraculous. The more i learn about science, the more i appreciate God's sense of design, His plans and attention to detail, His desire for us to connect to one another.

Take body donations, for example. We can donate so many different body parts after we die: organs, skin, even corneas. While alive, we can donate blood, platelets, plasma, bone marrow, stem cells, and even kidneys. Think about it: we all get two kidneys at birth, but we really only need one to survive. We get a spare, so that we can give one away if someone needs a new kidney.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, because nearly seven years ago, a group called Be The Match visited my campus. I was a college sophomore at the time, and had given blood a handful of times before. My blood giving was sometimes interrupted by my tattoos, but i gave whenever i could. But this was something entirely new.

Be The Match was asking people to join the national donor registry. They collect DNA samples to simplify the search process when someone needs bone marrow. You fill out a form, swab your cheek, and they email you a few times a year to keep you in the loop about what the organization is up to. I signed up immediately. I heard from them about a possible donation once, but mostly they left me alone.

Until about a week before my birthday.

A 39 year old man with leukemia was a match for my DNA. They can't and didn't tell me anything else about him. I told them i was still interested in donating, and we started the process. So far, i've signed a consent form and reviewed my medical history over the phone. I'm scheduled for a physical at the beginning of January, and will begin injections of filgrastim to increase the stem cells in my blood. The only real side effect to this is flu-like aches. After five days of injections, i'll be hooked up to two needles. One will draw stem cell-y blood and pass it into a machine which will filter out the stem cells, and the other will put the blood back. I've been told to expect slight soreness and extreme exhaustion for a day or two following this procedure.

After that, it's all over. Within a week, i'll be back to normal. I may or may not be asked to donate again.

I don't ever plan to have kids. I like kids a lot, especially up to the age of about four, but i don't have any desire or need to have them myself. Like when you see someone wearing a cute outfit that looks great on them but isn't at all your style: i'm happy for you that you have a baby and that you are happy with your life choices, but i'm all set over here, thanks.

But this feels a little like what i imagine it feels like to find out you are going to have a baby. To realize that your body has this amazing potential to create and sustain life; to understand that your body is going to give life to another person; to know that you will give up some measure of comfort and control, will experience pain, will give up time for doctor's visits and injections and long phone calls about your medical history; and to know that at the end of all of it, someone will receive life because of your sacrifice, is almost unbearably awesome. I am nervous about the pain. I am nervous about the stress. I am nervous about the time commitment. I am beyond thrilled to be able to do this.

I can't stop telling people about it. I realize that it's a little inelegant to do so, that it's like bragging about how charitable i am, but i can't help it. I am so in awe of the science involved (i'm getting five injections to MAKE MORE STEM CELLS! and then i'm GIVING STEM CELLS TO A PERSON SO THEY CAN LIVE!), and so thrilled to discover the power and potential of my own body. I am so glad to be able to help someone who needs it. I want so badly for more people to donate whatever body parts they can, whenever they are asked to do so, because why wouldn't you?! Who doesn't want to witness a miracle? Who doesn't want to BE a miracle?

It's a birthday miracle for me, and a Christmas miracle for this man and his family. It's science and research and medicine and technology. It's prayer and a willingness to sacrifice and serve. It's biology and chemistry. It's communication and contact. It's cotton swabs and needles.

We are all stardust. We are all stem cells.

food and faith and feminism and flove (i couldn't think of a "romance" word that started with an f.)

So my boyfriend and i were talking recently, and he made a comment about how my blog's voice has changed to a "feminist tirade". He has a point; i've become more aware of feminist theory and feminist issues lately, and i've been reading feminist blogs (four in particular, whose archives were amazing and from whom i have learned a lot). These things do color my writing, and of course when i am reading lots of feminist blogs all week long and then i do a weekly link roundup, there will be lots of feminist stuff in at least one post every week.

For those of you who have gotten tired of the "feminist tirade", rest assured: i'm about to start working my way through the archives of some cooking blogs. I'm also about to finish my year-long Bible-reading project and start a new Bible/spirituality reading project (more on that below). Both of these things will color my writing. How could they not?

For those of you who like the "feminist tirade", rest assured: that stuff isn't going to go away. I may have finished the archives, but i have added these blogs to my feedly, which means that while the concentration of feminism will be lowered, it will not be eliminated. I am a feminist, and therefore you could say that everything i write is feminist (whether or not it is a tirade is a little more subjective).

For those of you who haven't noticed any change . . . um, thanks for reading, i guess?

What to expect moving forward: Stuff about food. I'm changing the way i think about food, the way i shop, the way i cook, the way i talk about food. It's slow, and if you don't talk to me in person every day you might not even notice it, but i am trying to be more intentional about issues of food. I don't know how much of that will show up here or in what form (recipes and photos? links to other people's recipes and photos? rambling meditations on what i like to eat? mmmmmm, chocolate chip cookies . . .), but there will be more food stuff.

Also: stuff about God. I've always had God-ish posts here and there as something was on my mind, and in the past year i've tried to post at least once a week about my personal faith issues and feelings, and this will continue with a slightly different look and feel. I'm reading the Bible straight through again, but more slowly. I'm also reading more books of theology and philosophy (and i get to decide what counts as "theology and philosophy", so expect some "Year of Living Biblically" and "The Things They Carried" alongside of Henri Nouwen and "The King David Report"). Instead of posting journal entries about my Bible-reading thoughts, i'll be posting journal entries and prayers and meditations and reviews on everything spiritual i am reading and all of the thoughts and feelings i am having.

Also: stuff about my boyfriend. Because he is awesome and reads my blog and talks to me about stuff in my life and loves me and is good to me and is super snuggly and wonderful. But he's also internet-shy, so he won't be on here all the time and he won't be on here in any detail. Because i love him and try to be good to him as well.

What's in a name?

When i first started writing seriously, i decided to use a pen name. I planned to write YA fiction, and at the time i wanted to be a psychologist and to work with teens. I feared that people would think that my work was fictionalized case studies, and in order to draw a firm line between my creative writing and my counseling, i decided to do them each under a different name. After all, even if everyone in the world knew that the two identities were the same, by deliberately giving them each a different label, i would (i hoped) help my readers and clients to compartmentalize my work in the same way i did.

Because obviously, i would be such a famous writer and shrink that it would be virtually impossible for anyone to be unaware of my work in both fields, and if i wasn't up front about my ethical separation of the two, there would be a huge scandal and lots of interviews with Barbara Walters or Tim Russert about my deception of the American public. There is no arrogance quite like that of a fifteen-year-old who is the smartest employee at the sandwich shop. (I worked at a Quizno's in high school. Business was slow, so i would often write during down times. 75% of the other employees were high school dropouts, and the other 25% would probably never even apply to college, so yeah, i was the smartest one. Kind of like being valedictorian of summer school.)

As i began to write more and more and to expand my genres, i started to worry that people would read my poetry only in light of my short stories, or vice versa. Perhaps both were equally good, but people would hate one genre and love the other, simply because they had read my stories first and were disappointed by my poetry simply because it was so different. Or perhaps my poetry would be terrible but it would be published anyway because it had my name on it. (Remember, i was most definitely destined for literary greatness. No question about it. Plus poetry is really easy to publish and people go crazy for it and take it very seriously.)

So i decided to create a different pen name for each genre. At one point, i had about six worked out, and i was practicing signatures for all of them. Because of course i was.

The first pen name i'd picked was very important to me, for personal reasons. And because it was so important, i did not use it when i started this blog, or when i created my twitter account, or when i did various other online/public things. I wanted to reserve it for "real" writing.

And then, as i immersed myself more and more in online writing communities, and as i began sharing about my offline writing projects, i began to feel that i had made a mistake. I also became more and more disenchanted with the idea of multiple pen-names for one life. It all seemed so contrived and artificial. The name 'Diana Lark' in particular could hardly have been more obviously false. What seemed beautiful and interesting and appropriate at seventeen and nineteen seems trite and wrong at twenty-three. And more and more, i find myself returning to that real, important, personal name, and wishing that i had stuck with it from the beginning.

There is a lot wrapped up in a name. There is family history, world history, mythology, poetry, and etymology. There are connotations, different for each person who hears the name. There is the way it looks on the page, typed or hand-written or signed quickly on the inside pages. Name is identity. Name is power. Name is definition. Name is prophecy.

Over the next few weeks, i will be shedding the name Diana Lark in favor of the new one: Judith Elsroad. Thank you for following Diana all this time, and let's get geared up for Judith! It ought to be quite a ride; one of my Twitter followers had a dream last night that my tweets were read on NPR under a different name. So, prophecy?