Anne Marie Miller

Category: Essays

  • From Knot to Knot

    There is a story that begins with a monk in Croatia and ends with me, in Nashville, wearing a prayer bracelet he made. A woman who I’ve never met purchased a handful from this monk and gave a some to a female graduate student living in Salem, Oregon. I visited Salem on my book tour last fall, where this lovely girl interviewed me about my trip to India and sex trafficking before the event began. We shared stories and quite possibly, a kindred spirit. She had no idea that soon, the world that had been falling apart inside and around me would collapse into one of my darkest times.

    Three days after the event in Salem, I was laying in a bed in Gig Harbor, Washington, after finishing the tour the evening before. A friend of mine sent me a text message which woke me up, as it was 8:30 am in his time zone and 5:30 am in mine. He asked how I was doing, knowing it had been a rough season. I debated in my sleep-filled mind what to say. Do I tell him exactly what I’m thinking? Do I tell him what I’ve done?

    At 5:30 am, I count it a blessing I couldn’t think clearly enough to lie. I told him the truth.

    Sensing the urgency of my words, he and a small group of people worked together to get me the help I needed. I was going to be able to go away to a center in a desert for thirty days of intensive counseling and healing.

    As I packed my bags for Arizona, I was checking my email one last time. One downloaded from the graduate student I met in Salem. She asked if she could pray for me, feeling led to reach out. Only my closest friends knew I’d be leaving, but not counting her email a coincidence, I decided to tell her as well. I gave her the address to the place I’d be staying in case she wanted to write, as I wouldn’t have internet access there.

    If what the Scriptures say is true about our spirits groaning, that is the only faith I could find, and that wasn’t even intentional. God seemed absent, and I didn’t have the energy – and quite honestly the desire – to seek him out. Once I was in my routine in the desert, when people would ask about my faith I simply said, “I’m searching,” and moved on.

    I was empty.

    A package came in the mail a week or so after I arrived, and in it, this bracelet from Croatia, with the story of how she received it and why she was sending it. I figured since I was “searching,” surely wearing this bracelet as a reminder wouldn’t hurt. Through therapy sessions, solitude and long, long walks, I fingered the black knots and the silver cross, not really praying anything. The simplest prayer one prays with these bracelets is what is known as “The Jesus Prayer” and states, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” At my best, sometimes all I could muster was “mercy.”

    There was a girl I got to know at this facility who was also searching, also praying. She needed to go to a treatment center more specific to her needs, but because of some family issues wasn’t able to afford it. I looked at my bracelet and looked at her as we walked down a hall together.

    “Look. I just got this prayer bracelet in the mail and I don’t know what to think. But I guess since we’re both trying to find our faith, maybe it would be good for me to pray for you to get into that treatment center. So whenever I do pray, I’ll be praying for you.”

    I’ll admit. In a way it was a test. I followed through with my promise to her and prayed. And as it turned out, she was able to go.

    I left Arizona a week before the thirty days was over. I was ready. I had found what I needed to find and was able to begin on a steady and consistent path of healing. The bracelet, however, hasn’t left my arm until this weekend. After six months of life, even something as sacred as a Croatian prayer bracelet begins to get a little funky smelling. I zipped it into a delicates pouch and put it in with my laundry.

    When it was time for the clothes to go into the dryer, I took out the bracelet and rolled it back on my arm. Now with much more stable footing in my faith, I thought back to the many times I’ve prayed using this bracelet: many times The Jesus Prayer, but for others as well. As I touched each damp knot on my arm, I was flooded with the stories this bracelet has heard. Waves of gratitude washed over me as I realize that I am truly in a new season; the prayers of the past washed away in soapy water, most having been answered – sometimes immediately and sometimes slowly and inefficiently (as I’ve noticed is more the pace for things that require faith). Regardless of when, they were answered with a strong sovereignty I cannot explain in words.

    I realize the bracelet I wear holds no magical powers in and of itself. It is made of cloth and metal, and as I mentioned before, even can start smelling foul. However, the many hands that have held it…from its creation in a a far away land to its purchase to its travel to its passing down, and finally to its destination in my own presence while I doubted in a purple, quiet desert so beautifully paints the connectedness of our lives to the world around us.

    I’m sure the monk in Croatia had no idea as he sewed the black knots that eventually a girl in Nashville’s fingers would progress from knot to knot and would, sometimes with sweaty, nervous fingers, pray over the very threads he bound. And just as the threads in this bracelet hold it together, the threads in each of our stories bind us together as humans, never knowing how one story will lead to the next.

  • Essay: The Sex Cafe

    Please note: The essays and poems posted for the rest of 2010 will be some of my personal favorites from FlowerDust.net. New essays and poems will begin in January 2011. I hope you enjoy the “best of” my five years of blogging.

    (*Originally posted April 8, 2010)

    Thursday morning, our first meeting was with a young woman about my age who, for safety reasons, I’ll identify as L. We met her outside in the middle of the city, where she hopped in our van. I immediately liked her. She was intelligent and witty, and when we asked her where we should go for our meeting, she directed us toward a cafe in a nice part of town and said she had a surprise for us.

    We took seats at a table under the patio as the sun was beginning to warm the new spring air. We ordered a round of espresso (tea for me) and began to make introductions. Tom went first. Then Brad. Then me. Then Simon, as he set up his camera so we could film L’s story and hear about what her organization does.

    Our waitress, a young, pretty girl who surprisingly spoke enough English that I could actually communicate I wanted green tea instead of black, brought us our drinks. L. took a sip of her cappuccino and asked us if we were ready for our surprise.

    After a day like we had Wednesday, we were ready for anything.

    “The reason I brought you to this cafe is because there is a story here. When I first moved back to Moldova, I came here with a friend. It seems like a totally normal restaurant.”

    I looked around. It had nice tables and chairs and the shops across the street were for designer clothes. I didn’t feel like I was in a developing country. I could have been on a street in Paris for all I knew.

    “As I spent time here, I learned that this cafe is the main hub for girls that are trafficked out of Moldova.”

    Our team sat back stunned. Even S., who is our driver and has worked in the social sector of Moldova for years, was shocked.

    L. continued to tell us a similar story to what we have heard regarding young girls and the need for jobs. A majority of Moldovans immigrates out of the country for work because the unemployment rate here is so high. Girls out of the ninth grade (the required level of completion) when coming from abusive, alcoholic, or unattended homes, as well as orphans, will look for jobs. Foreigners actually own this cafe (amongst others) and will hire the girls as waitresses or cooks or to clean. They learn just enough of several languages over the course of a few months to a year and are promised promotions or transfers in restaurants in other European countries.

    And they get trafficked.

    I immediately wanted to take our waitress and throw her into our van, knowing what almost certain fate awaited her.

    It’s not like this industry is completely a secret, either. Men, especially foreign men, visit these cafes for a reason. If L. and I wouldn’t have been there with the men from our team, more than likely they would have been offered a girl.

    I lifted the mug of tea to my lips and wondered how many girls had filled that mug before. How many had served tea in it. How many had bussed it off the table and washed it.

    I wondered where they were now.

    L. proceeded to go through a newspaper and read to us ads that are ads that are intended to lure girls in. Ads for renting rooms or apartments often get young Moldovan girls and foreign university students kidnapped when they go to see if the apartment is what they’re looking for. Jobs for nannies who can travel. Jobs for waitresses.

    She even told us her own story – how, when she moved to Chisinau, she was looking for an apartment. Out of the hundreds of listings on the pages, only a handful or so were legit. She almost went to look at one but had a strange feeling about it after speaking with the owner, so she had a male friend call to check on it.

    It was one used for trafficking.

    She could have been a victim herself.

    As we sat around finishing our drinks, we took note of an ever-increasing stream of foreign men beginning to sit at surrounding tables. They came from inside the cafe and sat and stared at us.

    We acted like we didn’t notice, boldly keeping our very large camera out, and kept filming L. and her story.

    Before we left, I saw two young, very pretty girls walking outside the cafe. They were almost too young to be that pretty. One was maybe fourteen – the other one sixteen or seventeen. I was surprised when they walked into the cafe, and later took a seat behind us in the corner of the patio.

    They didn’t receive a menu, but a husky middle aged man with salt-and-pepper hair sat down with them. He discreetly handed the older girl a large sum of money. She looked up to him laughing with flirtatious but noticeably empty eyes.

    We paid our check and left, as the presence of the traffickers got to be a little too intense. L. and I stood on the sidewalk while Brad went in for a moment and we witnessed another young, pretty woman approaching the cafe. The husky man got up suddenly and began yelling at her. She managed to keep her distance on the other side of the patio railing but they were screaming loudly at each other in Romanian. I asked L. what they were fighting about.

    “Something didn’t happen right…something didn’t happen right at all,” is what she said. She nodded over my shoulder.“Those men behind you. They’re not Moldovan. They’re here for something.” I slowly turned around and pretended to look at the cafe door. Two very well dressed middle-eastern men were behind me and seemed to be negotiating with one of the cafe traffickers.

    It was surreal. We were standing in the middle of trafficking deals going down all around us and at the same time, families sat at the patio eating brunch. Maybe some of them knew, maybe not.

    But the darkness that was now exposed to us was almost blinding.

    Here we were.

    In broad daylight.

    In a nice part of the city.

    …buying coffee at the same time girls and sex were being sold.

    We walked to our van talking about how we couldn’t believe what just happened. The five of us said goodbye to L. and she went to wherever it was she was going. What an incredibly brave woman to know exactly what would happen where we would be and to show us exactly what we needed to see.

    We waited a few moments and drove around the block, passing the cafe again. The eight or ten men that had been keeping an eye on us were all gone in the five minutes it took us to circle back. The patio, except for a few maternal-esque women and the family, was empty.

    I always assumed that sex trafficking went on in the brothels and the strip clubs. In Moldova, there are none. When we’d ask around where this trafficking took place, it seemed like nobody knew.

    But when we did find it, it would be like watching a girl get sold outside at a Panera in your nicest suburb.

    As I continued thinking throughout the day, I realized that it doesn’t matter what my perception is on how or where or what sex trafficking looks like. I can pretend to be shocked (and honestly still am) that it happened in such an open location.

    But the bottom line is this:

    We all know it happens.

    It happens.

    It.

    Happens.

    It may have been dangerous for us to be there. It probably would be if we went back. But this is a subject we must continue to stare in the face and say – dangerous or not – this can not happen.

    This cannot happen on our watch.

    Because if we know about it, if it’s happening on our watch, we’re responsible to do something about it.

    Today, we’ll meet a girl who was trafficked from this exact cafe two years ago and is now in the care of L. and her organization.

    I can’t help but wonder if, when she worked in this cafe, she served somebody tea from the same cup I drank from yesterday.

  • Essay: From A Rainy Day to a Starry Night

    Please note: The essays and poems posted for the rest of 2010 will be some of my personal favorites from FlowerDust.net. New essays and poems will begin soon. I hope you enjoy the “best of” my five years of blogging.

    (*Originally posted September 28, 2010)

    I pulled on the chain for my hotel window’s curtain, a small part of me hoping to see sunlight filling my room as the shade lifted. Nothing is more perfect than a sunny, autumn day in New York City.

    With each tug, my room didn’t brighten. The puddles that were forming in the parking lot three stories down confirmed the weatherman on Channel 2 was accurate in the previous night’s forecast.

    Rain.

    Rain is not the end of the world. In fact, I kind of enjoy it. The water gives life to the plants, the animals, the forgotten. It washes away soot and smog and carries it to the sewer grates. It promises something new.

    As often as I travel, of course I come prepared for rain; the word prepared meaning, “I know there is a small shop in the train station that sells umbrellas for $3, so if it rains, I’ll be okay.” Off to the shop I went. $3 umbrella purchased. Train boarded.

    Forty five minutes later as I walk up the stairs from Penn Station to the streets of Manhattan, I open my new-found friend, the umbrella. What occurred in front of me was almost magical, the unnatural becoming natural. As my umbrella popped open to shield me from the pelting rain, so did umbrellas from the hundreds of people around me as they marched out of the undergrounds and into the street.

    $3 umbrellas are black, but true New Yorkers carry umbrellas with style. Reds, yellows, green with white stripes, polka dots, pinks…one by one the umbrellas arched up and bloomed like flowers after a spring rain, each one taking a different shape, brightness, and place on the vertical landscape.

    Maybe walking through this plastic garden in the rain wouldn’t be so bad after all.

    One mile later, I found myself in front of a hotel where a friend of mine had just given a presentation. This friend is not only a friend, but a confidant, a mentor, and a soothsayer. I had no idea what plans he had for us, but we slid into a cab with our wet umbrellas and backpacks and he asked the cab driver to take us to the Museum of Modern Art.

    He asked me if that was okay.

    That is like asking me if eating a chocolate lava cake for dinner is okay.

    (The correct answer is yes, just in case you were unaware of my deep appreciation for chocolate, and art for that matter).

    We arrived, and my friend flashed his membership cards in the right places as we climbed the stairs. This was my first trip to the MOMA, and I had no idea what was even being exhibited. He grew up in a family surrounded by fine art, so his knowledge of each painter, each context, and how they came into being (or passing for that matter) is rich and vast. We wandered through several of the rooms as he crafted a story weaving through Seurat to van Gogh, from Matisse to Mondrian and Magritte.

    What was the story of each painter? How was their art received in their time, and now?

    But beneath the art history lesson, he had a subtle and necessary agenda.

    How are these paintings and these similar to my own journey?

    Occasionally, we’d sit in a room, and whatever collection we had just passed he transformed into something tangible and relevant to the very steps I’m taking right now. What does van Gogh have to do with my writer’s block? A lot, actually. And what about rejection and being confident with my work (and myself) can I learn from a formerly mocked work of Matisse? More than I can share here.

    I’m no stranger to art — I studied it quite thoroughly growing up. As well known as Starry Night is, it has always been one of my favorites. Even my “I-don’t-want-to-be-trendy” point of view can’t escape it. It moved me deeply in 2005 when I was in a discouraging place. And to see it, finally, up close and personal, was a breathtaking moment. Tears formed in my eyes as we stood before a handful of more recognizable pieces of his work.

    These paintings are part of Vincent van Gogh.

    He painted these pieces.

    He touched them.

    He crafted them.

    He created them.

    Something in his heart made him paint.

    And even as my friend drew similarities between life and van Gogh, I couldn’t help but realize the profound effect seeing the actual paintings was having on me. As true as the words my friend was speaking were, the fact he was saying them as I stared at these paintings caused me to wonder…

    “What – and maybe more importantly how – am I painting?”

    I write words and they are sometimes put in books. Sometimes they are digitally transferred onto my computer screen, and your computer screen. Are these words as purely conceived in the same way each layer of Starry Night was painted?

    Will someone read them one day and think of the soul of the girl behind them and be amazed? In tears?

    Please let me clarify: It’s not because I believe anyone should be amazed in me, as a person. I am just flesh and blood and spirit and mistakes and hope and a bad driver. And I’m fairly sure van Gogh didn’t have any “what will people think?” thoughts running through his mind as he painted, either.

    However, I do believe there is a purity and honesty in each of us that can be released when we set aside our expectations, our fears, and our desire to please others and simply paint whatever that unspeakable and great thing that’s inside of us. The world will take notice. Not of us, but of the great Starry Night in us that will transcend them and inspire them into believing the truth about the goodness that is inside of them as well.

    “I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.” -Vincent van Gogh

    With this story, I only ask you to remember this: even in the darkest nights and the rainiest of days, moments of light and color mysteriously, majestically, and sometimes whimsically (like a rainbow of flowers disguised as umbrellas) shine through. Paint that truth.

  • Essay: My Toxic Bottle of Water

    Please note: The essays and poems posted for the rest of 2010 will be some of my personal favorites from FlowerDust.net. New essays and poems will begin soon. I hope you enjoy the “best of” my five years of blogging.

    I have a terrible habit of not finishing beverages.

    Size doesn’t matter. Whether it’s a 16 oz bottle of water or an 8 oz tiny can of Diet Coke, I don’t finish it.

    Bottled water for some reason takes the brunt of my compulsion. It’s embarrassing to admit, but there are times where I’ll just take a sip or two of a bottle of water and never touch it again.

    Such was the case with the bottle of water in my car. It was the middle of August and on this particular day I grabbed a bottle of water on my way out to run errands. I took two sips and it had been boiling in my car ever since.

    On my way home from visiting a friend a few days later, I realized I was extremely thirsty. I hadn’t had a bit of water all day.

    Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper? bottled-water

    Yes.

    Lots of sips.

    Water?

    No.

    As I looked around my car, this forlorn bottle of water sat in my passenger seat. It was the only relief in sight and my forty-five minute drive began to feel like six hours as the sun began to burn my left arm.

    “It’s not like it’s contaminated,” I reassured myself. “It’s just really, really warm. That’s all. You can drink it. It’s okay…”

    I unscrewed the blue cap, letting a bit of the air out of the bottle and took a gulp.

    Warm and plasticky.

    Delightful.

    I began wondering how healthy this water could actually be if all I tasted was plastic. I thought about the segment on The Today Show where they compared the different numbers of the different plastics and I tried to remember which ones were toxic. Because I’m sure whatever it was I was drinking was not safe for consumption.

    The heat of the water I was drinking, the droplets of sweat forming in the small of my back, and the sun being magnified by my untinted windows took me back to my trip to India earlier in the year.

    And this hot little bottle of water made me think of a little boy I met named Tushar.

    ***

    Tushar is a five year old who lives three hours outside of Kolkata. In early 2009, my husband and I began sponsoring him through an organization called Compassion International.

    A few days before I left India, I had the chance to meet Tushar and his father. They took a train from their village into the city. The translator introduced us and I realized Tushar’s dad was holding a bag and would occasionally take out a bottle of water for his son.

    The bottle of water wasn’t like anything you or I would see – much less drink from – here in the States. There was no label. The outside was scratched. But what was most surprising was what kind of water the bottle contained.

    If I didn’t know better, I would think it was tea with lemon. It was a light brown, with little pieces of…something…floating in it.

    But it was Tushar’s water. His drinking water. Water that was so precious, his father helped him ration it throughout their trip.

    After a visit to Science City, a museum that would be considered totally odd and possibly unsafe by our standards, we went to a building that would be parallel to a Western mall. It had stores and a food court.

    Lunch time.

    Our host went to a few of the restaurants in the food court to get us all something to drink. She came back with ice-cold bottled water.

    Clean, never opened, cold bottled water.

    Tushar’s dad reached across the table to open his bottle. Tushar leaned forward to take his first sip. When he grabbed the bottle for the first time, he immediately dropped it back on the table like it had bit him, almost spilling it. He pulled away and giggled.

    I was a little confused but very much intrigued by his reaction. He wiped the condensation off his hand and reached forward for the bottle of water again.

    But this time he didn’t grab it. He merely touched it with a couple of his fingers.

    And Tushar giggled again.

    Finally I realized something. He’s never touched anything cold before.

    The area of India that he lives in rarely sees temperatures below 60 degrees.

    The cold surprised him…in a good way.

    Playfully, I poured cold water from my bottle into the tiny blue cap and splashed him with it.

    He.

    Freaked.

    Out.

    We continued our little water fight until his dad moved his bottle closer to him, as to say, “this is for drinking and not for playing,” and Tushar sat up, knowing his dad was serious, and took a sip.

    His eyes got wide as he felt the cold water slide down the back of his throat. When it reached his stomach, he grabbed his belly and grinned and giggled.

    Drinking cold water was a completely new experience for this little boy.


    ***

    So, here I was, between Nashville and Franklin, Tennessee on I-65 contemplating the level of “poison” in my completely safe water and I wondered about Tushar and what he’s doing today. I wondered about his bottle of water. I doubt he was drinking anything nearly as clean or as available as I was.

    In fact, I doubt he had tasted water as cold or as clean since our time in the food court.

    I held back the tears that so wanted to escape and travel down my face because of the unfairness of it all.

    I wonder how many bottles of water I’ve carelessly and needlessly thrown away when a little boy and his family are grateful to have their dirty water in a bottle they found and probably share and hold on to like gold.

    For Pete’s sake. Even my cat has access to cleaner water than Tushar. We run it through the PUR filter on our kitchen sink.

    I can’t send Tushar clean water in the mail. I can’t take it to him or even make sure that he can access it.

    It’s a helpless feeling.

    And it’s easy to ignore because it is so overwhelming.

    “So, what can I do?” I wondered half-angry and all heart-broken as I sat in my car with my bottle of “toxic” water.

    I can give Tushar a voice. I can speak for him by telling his story. You’re reading about him now. Maybe you’ll want to share his story too.

    We may not be able to fix every problem we see, but we can allow the stories we hear to remind us of the incredible responsibility we have to share the needs of a broken world.

    These stories can awaken us and inspire us to act. To donate money to a water charity or find a creative way to talk about this issue. We can take clean water to the homeless in our own cities and towns. We can give up our birthdays and let our friends donate for clean water on our behalf. We can sponsor a child and help that child learn about clean water and hygiene and he can share that with his family.

    We know.

    And we know we can do something.

    So now that you know, what will you do?

    (Originally Written September 14, 2009)