Max García Conover - Kid Religion

 

So, when I was six years old, my family moved to a small town in western New York. We moved there, because my parents found this little house that they could afford, that was next to these beautiful woods. And just down the street from that house was the local church, which was very popular. Every Sunday, we’d watch as what looked like the entire town would show up there. And then, eventually, even though my family wasn’t really a family that went to church, eventually, we started going too, which I mostly liked. 

 

The chapel was cozy and warm, and the pastor seemed nice, and I always sat next to my dad and we’d just spend the whole sermon drawing these little cartoons. The only thing I didn’t like about church was that halfway through each service, all the little kids had to go downstairs for Sunday school. I didn’t know any of the other kids, and I didn’t make friends easily and so I spent most of that time alone, just pretending I was too interested in coloring pictures of Jesus to talk to anybody. [audience laughter] So, when the Sunday school teacher quit, and my mom volunteered to replace her, I was thrilled and also surprised. 

 

My mom was a labor lawyer from a Catholic Puerto Rican family in the Bronx, and she didn’t look or behave like any of the other moms at this small-town Methodist church. But that first week with her as the teacher was awesome. She was fun and cool, and I felt like the luckiest kid there. And then, the next week, she got fired. [audience laughter] When she asked why, the youth pastor told her that she’d given the wrong answer to a question. A kid had raised his hand and asked, “Where does God live?” And her answer was, “God lives everywhere. God lives out in the lake, and in the trees, and in this room and in you. Everywhere.” The youth pastor told her, “This is a Methodist church, we don’t believe God lives everywhere. You should have told the kids that he lives up in the sky.” 

 

After I found out what had happened, I felt like my family had been discovered, that the town had realized we didn’t really belong, and I was a little bit heartbroken by that. When my mom noticed how disappointed I was, she suggested that we start our own Sunday school, just the two of us, down in the woods behind our house. And so, that’s what we did. The next Sunday, she woke me up. Instead of walking toward the church, we walked in the other direction, past our barn and through the field where the grass got taller and taller and then turned to sumac. 

 

We picked our way through rose thorns and stumbled through spiderwebs until we got down to where the underbrush opened up, and the trees towered, these giant old oaks and maples. We kept walking farther and farther and farther, all the way down to this creek. And at the creek, we sat and we prayed, which to my mom meant reading Mary Oliver poems. [audience laughter] 

 

Every Sunday morning, we took that same walk down to the creek. And every Sunday, the great blue heron that lived down there would take off from the same place with the same reluctance. We’d sit and read poems, or write stories or sometimes we’d just try to be still enough for the deer to come out. And no matter what we were doing, I had the constant feeling that it was important and serious work. And so, we didn’t go back to that church down the street. I didn’t even really think about that church very much, not for several years, not until I was 14 years old, when suddenly and disastrously, I fell in love with a girl in my class. 

 

She and I had been in school together since we were little kids, but we never really interacted there. I don’t know why I felt so strongly so quickly, but I did. I knew that she sometimes went to that church down the street. So, every Sunday, I started walking over.

If she was there, I’d sit for the whole sermon and take notes. And if she wasn’t, I’d play pool in the basement with my best friend, Paul. Paul and I were the only two teenagers who regularly went to that church without our parents. I think we went in part, because that was the only pool table we had access to, [audience laughter] and in part because we were 14-year-old boys who thought we were going to hell. But mostly, I went because I thought I might see her there outside of school, and we might strike up a conversation.

 

 

I did see her, but we never ever talked. I was still too shy and too afraid of everyone. And this went on for months and months until finally, I caught a little break. Not at church, but in English class when I wrote a short story. And then, after school that day, she sent me a message on AOL Instant Messenger [audience laughter] to tell me that she liked it. And so, I wrote another one and another one and a dozen more, and I sent each one to her under the guise of peer editing. [audience laughter] She liked to write stories too and poems, or she'd be drawing, or singing or dancing. She just always seemed to be making things, and she seemed to love and understand art and beauty in a way I had no idea anybody could, in a way I don't think most people ever come close to. She was teeming with that love. She was far away and right down the street.

 

And then, one day, miraculously, she was at my house. We'd been talking every day on Instant Messenger, but in person, we still didn't really talk at all. So, I don't know how I had the nerve to ask her to come over, but I did and she was there and it was just the two of us. And as always, I couldn't think of anything to say. [audience laughter] So, I asked if she wanted to go for a walk down through the woods. This was late spring in western New York, when everything is green and lush, and every afternoon the light is hazy and honeyed and warm. She and I took that same walk my mom and I had taken so many times, past our barn, and through the field and the bushes and the trees, all the way down through to the creek.

 

It was there at the creek where she turned to me, and she looked at me and she told me that I always made her feel super awkward. [audience laughter] She was sorry, but she only wanted to be friends. [audience aww] And so, just like that, without ever getting to date this girl that I was in love with, I got dumped. [audience laughter] After her parents came to pick her up, I took off running. I went farther into those woods than I'd ever been, so far that I ended up at the highway, which I crossed. And then, I went down through the town cemetery, and the town golf course and all the way into the center of town.

 

And in the center of town, I just happened to run into my best friend, Paul. I was so relieved to see him, but I couldn't bring myself to tell him what had happened. I was certain that it was both a great love story and completely pathetic. [audience laughter] Afterward, for months, I was embarrassed and heartsick. And on Instant Messenger, I was always away. My away messages were often Dashboard Confessional lyrics. [audience laughter] I think I could tell you that that was the end of the story. I think if I did tell you that, it would be kind of like saying that God lives up in the sky. And the truth is, the story really didn't end there, although I was sure that it had.

 

A couple years later, when she and I were both juniors in high school, we got cast as husband and wife in the school play. [audience laughter] We were Mr. and Mrs. Keller in the very serious drama, The Miracle Worker, the story of how Helen Keller learned to read and write. And all of a sudden, I didn't need to think of anything to say to her anymore. It was all just written out for me. [audience laughter] I don't know if that's why, but even in between scenes, she and I found we could talk easily and joke easily, and we laughed a lot more than I'd ever laughed with anybody. 

 

In the play, I was supposed to be Helen Keller's father, like this stern, sad Southern man. I really wanted to do a good job at rehearsal, all I thought about was talking with her and laughing with her. There was this one moment where she and I were laughing so hard we were just crying. And then, the lights came up, and the scene started, and I had to slam my fist on the dining room table and shout, “Damn it, Katie, she can't see.” [audience laughter] That’s the Southern accent that I prepared for the role. [audience laughter] 

 

And so, the play was bad. [audience laughter] But by the end of it, she and I were headed out on our first date. We went to Applebee’s. [audience laughter] It was early winter in western New York, when everything is gray. The slush on the ground was gray, the strip mall was gray, the sky was low and gray, and to me on that night, it all felt endless and it seemed entirely possible that God lives everywhere. [audience aww]