Hey! Why haven't the fighters in the Resistance come up with a huge electromagnetic pulse to wipe out Skynet? Don't EMPs murder computer chips? Doesn't anyone in John Connor's army remember watching Dark Angel as a kid, before the lights went out? If they have enough resources to reconfigure time machines and reprogram Terminators, surely they have enough resources to build a pulse-maker.
Maybe this was addressed in Season 2 of The Sarah Connor Chronicles and I missed it. Or maybe it comes up in Terminator: Salvation this summer.
Not that I'm complaining, mind you. If Skynet is defeated in any simple way, my favorite of all fictive filmographic heroes has no more story, and that would cause me much grief.
Still.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
It started out as a song quotation and turned into a moral expository.
Who knew Ryan Adams could be so encouraging? I picked up Cardinology for barely a song the other day (Music Spree 2009 is well on its way, although plans are underway to give myself a monthly music allowance since truly I can't live without the stuff), and I love this one too:
For everything that's wrong
there is a worried man
There is a reason why
We just don't understand, but will:
You gotta keep the faith
Be patient, oh, the past is just a memory,
and heal -- heal your vines,
you'll heal inside eventually
We born into a light
We were born of light
We were born into a light
For everyone alone
I wish you faith and hope
and the strength to cope,
to be your own best friend:
Have confidence and keep the faith
Be patient, oh, the past is just a memory
and heal -- heal your vines,
you'll heal inside eventually
We were born into a light
We were born into a light
We were born of light
We were born into the light
"Born into a Light"
Quite possibly I sound severely unbalanced with this constant flux of ups and downs, but isn't that life? Something makes you feel horrible, but just for a little while, and then you bounce back for a little while. I can't say that I'm ever truly happy with a lack of particular companionship; all my happiness comes in spite of it; but there is happiness to be found nonetheless.
Today my resilience finds a helpful source in the rejuvenation of the whole world, the continual cycle of birth from death, the baby greening of the trees. The temperature hovers at around 55 and it's sunny, a quintessential Mid-Atlantic spring day, and I've dressed for the occasion in a flouncy brown skirt that ruffles out at the knees, little brown ankle boots, a sleek lime green tanktop and a shimmery burnt orange half-sleeved shrug with beaded sequensing down the neckline which ties below the breast. Big matching jewelry and loose curled hair completes the ensemble, and, for no good reason, especially because I suck at it, I want to go dancing. Form dancing -- like contra. Someplace where this skirt can fly out around my knees and do my pale calves some justice. I want to get caught up in some lively motion.
A few nagging existential dilemmas still gnaw like mice in the dark at my thoughts, but today it's not unbearable. I'm considering different approaches with a new mindset based on Thomas Jefferson's advice to his son that "the uprightness, and not the rightness of a decision is what matters." Which I think I love: So many decisions over which we agonize, trying to discern the "right" decision from the "wrong" one, have none of the good-vs.-evil implications or consequences with which we imbue them; important as they are, the different paths we might take do not lead to divine approval or indictment, and in these then, particularly as they involve other people, the question is not one of right and wrong, but of uprightness, of which decision is better -- which encompasses a host of moral considerations that keep a person on the path of integrity.
I think that oftentimes, as Christians, we fall into a black-and-white mentality of right and wrong, and approach decisions in terms of reward and punishment: Which choice leads to God's favor? Which choice will incur His wrath? How will I answer for this decision on Judgment Day? Unfortunately this approach, when it encompasses most of our decision-making processes, leads to paranoia, the fear that we are morally accountable for everything, and in the end we run the risk of paralyzing ourselves because we can identify a thousand ways in which God could judge us for any choice we might make, since we are never truly selfless, never live perfectly in love.
But we miss out on so much of life's richness, on the possibilities of love and the glowing strength of living in faith and the gloriousness of walking free of fear, when we reduce everything to its eternal consequences to ourselves. Christ came that we may "have [life] to the full," not to the minimum, and a life lived in fear of taking a wrong step and falling into a pit of fire isn't exactly living life to the fullest.
And honestly, uprightness is more commendable than correctness. Most of the time there is no correct answer, anyway. I'm not talking about choices that are clearly between right and wrong, such as Do I cheat on my spouse or not? but rather choices such as whether to express words of love, or how to approach human relationships, or which career to pursue in which part of the world. There's no blueprint for these things, just a foundation of agape love. How we build on that is up to us, and the structure gets to be our own. The love and the lives we build won't look like anyone else's; we're not talking manufactured homes here. Someone's might have three stories and turrets, someone else's might be built into a hillside with a vegetable garden on the roof, and someone else's still might sprawl in a single story with flowers in windowboxes. God's not going to say that one of these mansions is better than another; as He made the extent universe in dizzying variety, so He made us, and so He made us to love: uniquely, individually, personally, powerfully. The only thing we don't get is praise for trying to copy our neighbor brick for brick, or praise for building International-style, trying to make everything the same from the fear of incorrectness and winding up without beauty or soul.
To consider uprightness, the full effect of a decision less upon the self than upon others, leads to better decisions. Ironically when we stop focusing on how the decision will affect us eternally, we make choices that will actually lead to a "Well done, good and faithful servant!" If we choose based purely on our own interest (yes, thinking only of whether or not God will be happy with us displays even greater self-interest than a lot of decisions based on sensory impulses) we live and love in a miserly way: We become the servant who buries his talent in a corner of the garden and does nothing for anyone: We become inorganic.
We spend so much time worrying about what God wants. He's said pretty clearly what He wants from us: "To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." The beginning of that verse -- "He has shown you, O man, what is good" -- implies the question we ask so often: What is right? What is the good decision? And the answer: He has shown you. Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God. These are matters of uprightness. Justice, mercy, humility; action, love and progress.
Most of the time we only let ourselves get mired down in wondering what God wants because it lets us dither our way into paranoid inaction, which gives us a secret sense of relief because the decision we probably ought to make involves risks that scare us. And we can get away with that if we obsess, and prioritize, the rightness of a thing. We can deconstruct every possibility until it reverberates to meaninglessness, and thereby justify our failure to act. But when we prioritize uprightness, we seek to bring good to, and to bless the Other, and we pursue the fullest richness of life. And in contemplating uprightness we have no excuse for failing to bring good to another.
The spotlight of uprightness shows our decisions for what they often are: selfish and cowardly, small and fearful. Uprightness brings every shade of goodness and love to counter all the shades of uncertainty we use to excuse ourselves.
And how much more fun it is to celebrate each other! How much happier to tell people what they mean to us, to encourage their strengths and forgive their weaknesses, to look for things to love about others and express appreciation for them!
As Sufjan writes:
We celebrate our sense of each other:
We have a lot to give one another.
For everything that's wrong
there is a worried man
There is a reason why
We just don't understand, but will:
You gotta keep the faith
Be patient, oh, the past is just a memory,
and heal -- heal your vines,
you'll heal inside eventually
We born into a light
We were born of light
We were born into a light
For everyone alone
I wish you faith and hope
and the strength to cope,
to be your own best friend:
Have confidence and keep the faith
Be patient, oh, the past is just a memory
and heal -- heal your vines,
you'll heal inside eventually
We were born into a light
We were born into a light
We were born of light
We were born into the light
"Born into a Light"
Quite possibly I sound severely unbalanced with this constant flux of ups and downs, but isn't that life? Something makes you feel horrible, but just for a little while, and then you bounce back for a little while. I can't say that I'm ever truly happy with a lack of particular companionship; all my happiness comes in spite of it; but there is happiness to be found nonetheless.
Today my resilience finds a helpful source in the rejuvenation of the whole world, the continual cycle of birth from death, the baby greening of the trees. The temperature hovers at around 55 and it's sunny, a quintessential Mid-Atlantic spring day, and I've dressed for the occasion in a flouncy brown skirt that ruffles out at the knees, little brown ankle boots, a sleek lime green tanktop and a shimmery burnt orange half-sleeved shrug with beaded sequensing down the neckline which ties below the breast. Big matching jewelry and loose curled hair completes the ensemble, and, for no good reason, especially because I suck at it, I want to go dancing. Form dancing -- like contra. Someplace where this skirt can fly out around my knees and do my pale calves some justice. I want to get caught up in some lively motion.
A few nagging existential dilemmas still gnaw like mice in the dark at my thoughts, but today it's not unbearable. I'm considering different approaches with a new mindset based on Thomas Jefferson's advice to his son that "the uprightness, and not the rightness of a decision is what matters." Which I think I love: So many decisions over which we agonize, trying to discern the "right" decision from the "wrong" one, have none of the good-vs.-evil implications or consequences with which we imbue them; important as they are, the different paths we might take do not lead to divine approval or indictment, and in these then, particularly as they involve other people, the question is not one of right and wrong, but of uprightness, of which decision is better -- which encompasses a host of moral considerations that keep a person on the path of integrity.
I think that oftentimes, as Christians, we fall into a black-and-white mentality of right and wrong, and approach decisions in terms of reward and punishment: Which choice leads to God's favor? Which choice will incur His wrath? How will I answer for this decision on Judgment Day? Unfortunately this approach, when it encompasses most of our decision-making processes, leads to paranoia, the fear that we are morally accountable for everything, and in the end we run the risk of paralyzing ourselves because we can identify a thousand ways in which God could judge us for any choice we might make, since we are never truly selfless, never live perfectly in love.
But we miss out on so much of life's richness, on the possibilities of love and the glowing strength of living in faith and the gloriousness of walking free of fear, when we reduce everything to its eternal consequences to ourselves. Christ came that we may "have [life] to the full," not to the minimum, and a life lived in fear of taking a wrong step and falling into a pit of fire isn't exactly living life to the fullest.
And honestly, uprightness is more commendable than correctness. Most of the time there is no correct answer, anyway. I'm not talking about choices that are clearly between right and wrong, such as Do I cheat on my spouse or not? but rather choices such as whether to express words of love, or how to approach human relationships, or which career to pursue in which part of the world. There's no blueprint for these things, just a foundation of agape love. How we build on that is up to us, and the structure gets to be our own. The love and the lives we build won't look like anyone else's; we're not talking manufactured homes here. Someone's might have three stories and turrets, someone else's might be built into a hillside with a vegetable garden on the roof, and someone else's still might sprawl in a single story with flowers in windowboxes. God's not going to say that one of these mansions is better than another; as He made the extent universe in dizzying variety, so He made us, and so He made us to love: uniquely, individually, personally, powerfully. The only thing we don't get is praise for trying to copy our neighbor brick for brick, or praise for building International-style, trying to make everything the same from the fear of incorrectness and winding up without beauty or soul.
To consider uprightness, the full effect of a decision less upon the self than upon others, leads to better decisions. Ironically when we stop focusing on how the decision will affect us eternally, we make choices that will actually lead to a "Well done, good and faithful servant!" If we choose based purely on our own interest (yes, thinking only of whether or not God will be happy with us displays even greater self-interest than a lot of decisions based on sensory impulses) we live and love in a miserly way: We become the servant who buries his talent in a corner of the garden and does nothing for anyone: We become inorganic.
We spend so much time worrying about what God wants. He's said pretty clearly what He wants from us: "To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." The beginning of that verse -- "He has shown you, O man, what is good" -- implies the question we ask so often: What is right? What is the good decision? And the answer: He has shown you. Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God. These are matters of uprightness. Justice, mercy, humility; action, love and progress.
Most of the time we only let ourselves get mired down in wondering what God wants because it lets us dither our way into paranoid inaction, which gives us a secret sense of relief because the decision we probably ought to make involves risks that scare us. And we can get away with that if we obsess, and prioritize, the rightness of a thing. We can deconstruct every possibility until it reverberates to meaninglessness, and thereby justify our failure to act. But when we prioritize uprightness, we seek to bring good to, and to bless the Other, and we pursue the fullest richness of life. And in contemplating uprightness we have no excuse for failing to bring good to another.
The spotlight of uprightness shows our decisions for what they often are: selfish and cowardly, small and fearful. Uprightness brings every shade of goodness and love to counter all the shades of uncertainty we use to excuse ourselves.
And how much more fun it is to celebrate each other! How much happier to tell people what they mean to us, to encourage their strengths and forgive their weaknesses, to look for things to love about others and express appreciation for them!
As Sufjan writes:
We celebrate our sense of each other:
We have a lot to give one another.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
song of the day
In all my life mercy
hasn't known my name this well
Like how every sea filters out
and leads us gently to a creek
we sit around
Some of us are strong
but the rest of us are weak
So let us down, if you must
But let us down easy, Lord
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down
In patches of pink clouds thick smoke
comes rising off them hillside slopes
Down here in this neighborhood it's the dumps
with cars iced up perfect for writing on
if you're wearing gloves
Every season I spend alone
feels like a thousand
to my heart and in my soul
So let me down, if you must
But let us down easy, Lord
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down
Instead of praying I tell God these jokes
He must be tired of himself so much
He must be more than disappointed
Christmas comes, we eat alone
A pretty girl surrounds some pretty thought
Who takes your order, she yells it
and she cries alone in the back room once it stops
then she smiles
So let her down, if you must
But let us down easy, Lord
But let us down easy, Lord
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down, let us down, let us down
Easy
~Ryan Adams, "Let Us Down Easy," Cardinology
hasn't known my name this well
Like how every sea filters out
and leads us gently to a creek
we sit around
Some of us are strong
but the rest of us are weak
So let us down, if you must
But let us down easy, Lord
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down
In patches of pink clouds thick smoke
comes rising off them hillside slopes
Down here in this neighborhood it's the dumps
with cars iced up perfect for writing on
if you're wearing gloves
Every season I spend alone
feels like a thousand
to my heart and in my soul
So let me down, if you must
But let us down easy, Lord
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down
Instead of praying I tell God these jokes
He must be tired of himself so much
He must be more than disappointed
Christmas comes, we eat alone
A pretty girl surrounds some pretty thought
Who takes your order, she yells it
and she cries alone in the back room once it stops
then she smiles
So let her down, if you must
But let us down easy, Lord
But let us down easy, Lord
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down
Let us down easy, Lord
Let us down, let us down, let us down
Easy
~Ryan Adams, "Let Us Down Easy," Cardinology
a nose by any other name
Wouldn't it be weird if our noses were made of bone instead of cartilage? They'd have to have joints for us to sniff, or sneeze, or wrinkle them. Our faces would be much less expressive. And our skulls might look hilarious instead of macabre. Because basically our noses would be fingers. Which is kind of gross. Unless you're an elephant (although their noses are cartilage too).
But maybe they could pick themselves.
But maybe they could pick themselves.
Monday, April 27, 2009
crapside
On Sunday in celebration of the lovely weather Linnèa, Jenny and I drove into New York to visit Lake Chautauqua and wander the lake village and look at the expensive houses. Since it’s still the off season, none of the touristy shops or cafes were open, and on the way home hunger forced us to stop at the only open restaurant we could find: Lakeside Hotel and Restaurant.
It was an unfortunate necessity. As soon as we climbed out of the car we smelled the hot grease of a huge deep fat fryer. Not food: grease. Our arrival further didn’t bode well when, despite the “please wait for hostess to seat you” sign, none of the employees looked at us when we stepped through the door – the only acknowledgments we received came from the creepy men at the bar. (In tiny little podunk towns like the ones scattered across PA and New York, anyone looking remotely fresh and pretty garners attention; most of the women in these places wear stonewashed jeans, hair in last year’s perm and dusty black leather.) After waiting several minutes, I approached the bartender and asked her where we should sit. “Anywhere,” was her sullen response, and we elected to take a table on the outdoor patio.
I saw a guy stick his head out the door with a few menus bristling out from under his arm. I made eye contact and smiled, and he disappeared like a gopher.
That was when I grew annoyed.
Finally the same gentlemen brought a few menus to our table (everything on it was fried), having lingered around the tables of other people already eating their food, and proceeded to scold us for not waiting for the hostess. With sugary politeness and a smile that was all teeth I said, “Well, nobody greeted us and the girl behind the bar told us to sit wherever we liked.”
He got passive-aggressively defensive. I didn’t react, although I maintained my firm overpoliteness (“I’m not taking responsibility for that shit,” I muttered to my companions after he walked away), and after twenty minutes or so our server arrived to take our drink orders. She then proceeded to forget our drinks, forget what we’d ordered, forget to check on us, and forget everything we asked for.
My reward for patience and courtesy was free beer.
The entertainment that evening featured a table full of drunken hicks espousing their enlightened views on sexual orientation in roaring voices. I thanked my stars that I sat with my back to them so that I didn’t need to disguise my facial expressions, which seemed to keep my companions entertained.
The food, when it finally arrived, tasted fine, except for something funny about the coating on the fries. I couldn’t tell if it was the taste of really old grease or lard. The burger was cold by the time I got the condiments I wanted, but at least the cook knew how to grill (or fry) medium rare meat.
Basically I don’t think I’ve ever experienced worse service at any establishment I have ever visited in my life. Further, the next day my intestines decided to voice their hatred of me for what I'd forced them to digest and gave me that post-greasy-food feeling of bloated heaviness and general malbeing.
But the patio was nice and the day was sunny and warm and I was wearing a pretty dress, so while I can’t imagine ever voluntarily eating there again, I don’t consider it a loss. But I've had my fill of fried food for awhile.
It was an unfortunate necessity. As soon as we climbed out of the car we smelled the hot grease of a huge deep fat fryer. Not food: grease. Our arrival further didn’t bode well when, despite the “please wait for hostess to seat you” sign, none of the employees looked at us when we stepped through the door – the only acknowledgments we received came from the creepy men at the bar. (In tiny little podunk towns like the ones scattered across PA and New York, anyone looking remotely fresh and pretty garners attention; most of the women in these places wear stonewashed jeans, hair in last year’s perm and dusty black leather.) After waiting several minutes, I approached the bartender and asked her where we should sit. “Anywhere,” was her sullen response, and we elected to take a table on the outdoor patio.
I saw a guy stick his head out the door with a few menus bristling out from under his arm. I made eye contact and smiled, and he disappeared like a gopher.
That was when I grew annoyed.
Finally the same gentlemen brought a few menus to our table (everything on it was fried), having lingered around the tables of other people already eating their food, and proceeded to scold us for not waiting for the hostess. With sugary politeness and a smile that was all teeth I said, “Well, nobody greeted us and the girl behind the bar told us to sit wherever we liked.”
He got passive-aggressively defensive. I didn’t react, although I maintained my firm overpoliteness (“I’m not taking responsibility for that shit,” I muttered to my companions after he walked away), and after twenty minutes or so our server arrived to take our drink orders. She then proceeded to forget our drinks, forget what we’d ordered, forget to check on us, and forget everything we asked for.
My reward for patience and courtesy was free beer.
The entertainment that evening featured a table full of drunken hicks espousing their enlightened views on sexual orientation in roaring voices. I thanked my stars that I sat with my back to them so that I didn’t need to disguise my facial expressions, which seemed to keep my companions entertained.
The food, when it finally arrived, tasted fine, except for something funny about the coating on the fries. I couldn’t tell if it was the taste of really old grease or lard. The burger was cold by the time I got the condiments I wanted, but at least the cook knew how to grill (or fry) medium rare meat.
Basically I don’t think I’ve ever experienced worse service at any establishment I have ever visited in my life. Further, the next day my intestines decided to voice their hatred of me for what I'd forced them to digest and gave me that post-greasy-food feeling of bloated heaviness and general malbeing.
But the patio was nice and the day was sunny and warm and I was wearing a pretty dress, so while I can’t imagine ever voluntarily eating there again, I don’t consider it a loss. But I've had my fill of fried food for awhile.
sleeping in the sand
So many things about which to blog...
But I only want to talk about two things at the moment, and I only have time to talk about one. Perhaps it will hold no interest for you, dear readers, but, as it holds no interest for most of the people I know, and as you, dear readers, are a more or less free-but-captive audience (as in, you have no control over what I post, but don't have to read anything I write if you're bored, and I'm none the wiser), this is what's appearing today.
I post about this, I feel, fairly frequently, but I still can never say it enough: I love, I love, I love Conor Oberst. There are never words adequate to express how much. I can list plenty of reasons why (and I will), but underneath all the rationales lies something purely visceral and inexplicable, a reaction of mind, soul, heart and body to his music. Some people who share my faith look at me funny when I say that, but clearly they don't understand squat.
I love the power of his imagery. I've been told by people whose opinions remain ever high in my esteem that I wield metaphor and simile deftly. Conor wields them as though they were his hands and his feet -- not something he grips, but something he grips with. Every time I listen to his compositions I have to fight the temptation to close my eyes (because I'm usually driving) to savor the garroting beauty of his metaphors. Devastatingly lovely, mind-stoppingly brilliant. The one that nailed me to the wall last night was, "Stars are all inset like diamonds / on a gravity halo / eternity's wedding band," (from "Coat Check Dreamsong"). Fabulous rendering of the Milky Way. This morning's (which I have noticed many times before; it always strikes me afresh) was
Hey, hey, hey, mighty outer space
all that flying saucer terror made me lazy drinking lemonade
a waste
it just went to waste
like the freon cold out the hotel door
or the white rocket fade over Cape Canaveral...
(from "Cape Canaveral").
Oh, that simile, "like the freon cold out the hotel door." I lose my breath a little bit every time I hear that one.
I love his scratchy, throaty, chesty voice. It bears so much of his body in it -- such a physical voice. He conveys more emotion from the tenor of his voice than most people can with facial expressions, and I feel his music in every fiber of me.
I love his enunciation. I have almost never needed to check the lyrics of any of his songs, because his enunciation is nearly flawless. Every vowel, every consonant receives its just due from Conor's mouth, which adds power to his voice and his images. And since he makes masterful use of alliteration (the English language's best poetic asset) in lines such as, "All the peacock people left their plumes in a pile" (from "Get Well Cards" -- ahhh, brilliant line), and of assonance in lines such as, "I know that victory's sweet even deep in the cheap seats" (from "Cape Canaveral"), the devices' dependence on excellent pronunciation comes to utter satisfaction in Conor's reverent care. And his grammar is wonderful, too -- he knows about "lie/lay" and leaving out the "s" in "toward." This almost puts me over the edge of ecstasy. (Yes, I find good grammar wildly sexy.)
I love his spirituality. I love the passion that permeates everything he says, every tone, every chord, every instrument. Most of all I love the way in which this musician and lyricist, exceptionally sensitive to beauty and horror and all the ways they intersect, grapples with his deep and inescapable love for the God in whom he no longer believes.
When I'm too depressed for words, I listen to Conor. When I'm too happy to contain myself, I listen to Conor. When I'm content and at peace with the world, I listen to Conor. I feel closer to the oneness of the world, closer to God, with Conor's music surrounding me in my little car.
And, glory hallelujah, he's coming out with his next album in just over a week. Something told me to check (because Amazon loves to recommend to me books in which I have no interest and will never read, like everything Ambrose Bierce ever wrote or thought about writing, because I have bought books by A. S. Byatt, and apparently all Amazon needs are matching initials; meanwhile all of the music that sustains and enlivens and soothes my soul slides unnoticed beneath its recommending eye, leaving me to fend for myself based purely on an ESP sense of longing for my favorite artists), and now I wish it were a week from today so I could listen to it almost NOW.
I can't wait I can't wait I can't wait. It's summer: the time of the music spree. I feel moved to sing:
We should move to Sausalito
Livin's easy in a houseboat
Let the ocean rock us back and forth to sleep
In the morning see the sunrise
Look in the water see the blue skies
As if heaven has been laid there at our feet
So we remain between these waves
Sheltered for all our years
While bikers glide by highway shrines
Where pilgrims disappear
Where time takes icebergs
Where fields burn westward
Where pilgrims disappear
~ from "Sausalito"
But I only want to talk about two things at the moment, and I only have time to talk about one. Perhaps it will hold no interest for you, dear readers, but, as it holds no interest for most of the people I know, and as you, dear readers, are a more or less free-but-captive audience (as in, you have no control over what I post, but don't have to read anything I write if you're bored, and I'm none the wiser), this is what's appearing today.
I post about this, I feel, fairly frequently, but I still can never say it enough: I love, I love, I love Conor Oberst. There are never words adequate to express how much. I can list plenty of reasons why (and I will), but underneath all the rationales lies something purely visceral and inexplicable, a reaction of mind, soul, heart and body to his music. Some people who share my faith look at me funny when I say that, but clearly they don't understand squat.
I love the power of his imagery. I've been told by people whose opinions remain ever high in my esteem that I wield metaphor and simile deftly. Conor wields them as though they were his hands and his feet -- not something he grips, but something he grips with. Every time I listen to his compositions I have to fight the temptation to close my eyes (because I'm usually driving) to savor the garroting beauty of his metaphors. Devastatingly lovely, mind-stoppingly brilliant. The one that nailed me to the wall last night was, "Stars are all inset like diamonds / on a gravity halo / eternity's wedding band," (from "Coat Check Dreamsong"). Fabulous rendering of the Milky Way. This morning's (which I have noticed many times before; it always strikes me afresh) was
Hey, hey, hey, mighty outer space
all that flying saucer terror made me lazy drinking lemonade
a waste
it just went to waste
like the freon cold out the hotel door
or the white rocket fade over Cape Canaveral...
(from "Cape Canaveral").
Oh, that simile, "like the freon cold out the hotel door." I lose my breath a little bit every time I hear that one.
I love his scratchy, throaty, chesty voice. It bears so much of his body in it -- such a physical voice. He conveys more emotion from the tenor of his voice than most people can with facial expressions, and I feel his music in every fiber of me.
I love his enunciation. I have almost never needed to check the lyrics of any of his songs, because his enunciation is nearly flawless. Every vowel, every consonant receives its just due from Conor's mouth, which adds power to his voice and his images. And since he makes masterful use of alliteration (the English language's best poetic asset) in lines such as, "All the peacock people left their plumes in a pile" (from "Get Well Cards" -- ahhh, brilliant line), and of assonance in lines such as, "I know that victory's sweet even deep in the cheap seats" (from "Cape Canaveral"), the devices' dependence on excellent pronunciation comes to utter satisfaction in Conor's reverent care. And his grammar is wonderful, too -- he knows about "lie/lay" and leaving out the "s" in "toward." This almost puts me over the edge of ecstasy. (Yes, I find good grammar wildly sexy.)
I love his spirituality. I love the passion that permeates everything he says, every tone, every chord, every instrument. Most of all I love the way in which this musician and lyricist, exceptionally sensitive to beauty and horror and all the ways they intersect, grapples with his deep and inescapable love for the God in whom he no longer believes.
When I'm too depressed for words, I listen to Conor. When I'm too happy to contain myself, I listen to Conor. When I'm content and at peace with the world, I listen to Conor. I feel closer to the oneness of the world, closer to God, with Conor's music surrounding me in my little car.
And, glory hallelujah, he's coming out with his next album in just over a week. Something told me to check (because Amazon loves to recommend to me books in which I have no interest and will never read, like everything Ambrose Bierce ever wrote or thought about writing, because I have bought books by A. S. Byatt, and apparently all Amazon needs are matching initials; meanwhile all of the music that sustains and enlivens and soothes my soul slides unnoticed beneath its recommending eye, leaving me to fend for myself based purely on an ESP sense of longing for my favorite artists), and now I wish it were a week from today so I could listen to it almost NOW.
I can't wait I can't wait I can't wait. It's summer: the time of the music spree. I feel moved to sing:
We should move to Sausalito
Livin's easy in a houseboat
Let the ocean rock us back and forth to sleep
In the morning see the sunrise
Look in the water see the blue skies
As if heaven has been laid there at our feet
So we remain between these waves
Sheltered for all our years
While bikers glide by highway shrines
Where pilgrims disappear
Where time takes icebergs
Where fields burn westward
Where pilgrims disappear
~ from "Sausalito"
Friday, April 24, 2009
plenty of sunshine headin' my way
Eighty-five degrees now. Still sunshine! I haven't felt this upsurge of fiercely joyful wellbeing in ages. I want this weather to last forever. Or at least a week. It can rain while I'm sleeping. I've been bouncing around with a bright smile radiating a cheer that would make Little Orphan Annie look like a cousin to Oscar the Grouch.
Except that I'm indignant because as I unfolded my legs from the car upon arriving at my parents' house a little girl zipped past me on a bike. Which didn't strike me as deserving of indignation until I heard a little humming whine. My head snapped up.
The damn thing was motorized.
Apparently the beauty of technology is not making our kids even work to push their own pedals anymore, so that they can grow up to become enormous balls of flesh with no muscle like all the people floating on carts in Wall-e.
Except that I'm indignant because as I unfolded my legs from the car upon arriving at my parents' house a little girl zipped past me on a bike. Which didn't strike me as deserving of indignation until I heard a little humming whine. My head snapped up.
The damn thing was motorized.
Apparently the beauty of technology is not making our kids even work to push their own pedals anymore, so that they can grow up to become enormous balls of flesh with no muscle like all the people floating on carts in Wall-e.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Today I feel light and whimsical; my soul and my heart feel full and satisfied and nicely stretched, as if they'd had a good meal and a good nap and are once again able to yawn and sigh and look around them in contented interest.
I have begun to reevaluate my recent years' prioritization of pragmatism: If God designed life to be, above all else, good and beautiful, why do we laud a sterile industrial life of usefulness as the best of all possible worlds?
I think because we've given up. I had given up. But I'm tired of being tired, and I'm tired of living as though tomorrow will hold only responsibility and duty and part of a much-needed paycheck. Tomorrow holds adventure. God made tomorrow that way. And we can start living it now.
Kierkegaard writes, "Abraham had faith, and he had faith for this life." The man who fathered the faith from which our own faith sprang had faith that his promise would come to its full flower in his own lifetime. So will ours. So will yours. So will mine.
Let's get out of the bread line and grab up a machete and start hacking away at a place where no trail existed before. There are heroes and monsters and villains and things of great terror and things of great beauty and things of great joy and great peace and great fun.
I'm tired of merely existing. It's going to be a gradual process realizing the hopes, but it starts with reviving the dreams I had as a little girl: dreams of romance and adventure, dreams of doing something amazing and significant, dreams of changing the world, dreams of being necessary and essential and brave and beautiful and fearless and fought for.
Why not? Being practical didn't bring me what I wanted, and didn't make me happy about it. I'm going to relearn how to be a little more starry-eyed. Not that pragmatism doesn't serve its purpose (ha); but it's not the be-all and end-all. Love and truth and goodness and beauty are. Because He who is the Alpha and Omega is all of these things.
I have begun to reevaluate my recent years' prioritization of pragmatism: If God designed life to be, above all else, good and beautiful, why do we laud a sterile industrial life of usefulness as the best of all possible worlds?
I think because we've given up. I had given up. But I'm tired of being tired, and I'm tired of living as though tomorrow will hold only responsibility and duty and part of a much-needed paycheck. Tomorrow holds adventure. God made tomorrow that way. And we can start living it now.
Kierkegaard writes, "Abraham had faith, and he had faith for this life." The man who fathered the faith from which our own faith sprang had faith that his promise would come to its full flower in his own lifetime. So will ours. So will yours. So will mine.
Let's get out of the bread line and grab up a machete and start hacking away at a place where no trail existed before. There are heroes and monsters and villains and things of great terror and things of great beauty and things of great joy and great peace and great fun.
I'm tired of merely existing. It's going to be a gradual process realizing the hopes, but it starts with reviving the dreams I had as a little girl: dreams of romance and adventure, dreams of doing something amazing and significant, dreams of changing the world, dreams of being necessary and essential and brave and beautiful and fearless and fought for.
Why not? Being practical didn't bring me what I wanted, and didn't make me happy about it. I'm going to relearn how to be a little more starry-eyed. Not that pragmatism doesn't serve its purpose (ha); but it's not the be-all and end-all. Love and truth and goodness and beauty are. Because He who is the Alpha and Omega is all of these things.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
of which they know nothing
Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.
~James 3:5b
An unfortunate incident involving an Erie police officer has inflamed the local media with preposterous results.
I've never fallen under The Media's Biggest Fan category, but this article brought my opinion down to new lows. Ever since the Rodney King incident, America has loved to hate the law enforcement. And while a focus on justice is certainly necessary, the spin on cops is always negative, their motives always suspect. They are indicted, mocked, railed against and disrespected everywhere, and a gleeful media seizes upon each new opportunity to make the police look horrible.
If a responsible press's job is to inform the populace, that press should take carefully into account how little the average citizen knows of law enforcement life. Most people only see uniformed men with big sticks brutally beating the innocent ("innocent" -- ha), or the candy-coated crap idolized by serial dramas on popular television. In reality a cop's job ranks slightly below coal mining and waste management for environment and job material. Police officers have to clean up after all of the evils which human beings perpetrate against each other without any of the glory received by firemen and military officers.
The old days of standing at crosswalks directing traffic and finding lost puppies are gone. Instead, police have to patrol streets every day that hate them. They help people who feel no gratitude. They are yelled at, spit at, swung at and shot at by the people they have sworn to protect. No one lauds them as heroes. The everyday substance of their job is human misery and human hatred.
My dad has talked down criminals at gunpoint. My dad has been puked on by drunks. My dad has been attacked by a German shepherd whose owner was only angry that my dad, bleeding profusely from the leg, had to kill the dog.
My dad has also arrived first on the scene of a train track death to wrap his arms around the six-year-old girl who watched her brother die. My dad has shared the love of Christ with drug addicts who told him that cocaine was their savior. My dad has sat with the parents of a child who was raped and murdered and stored in a garbage bag by her uncles who only threw her in a dumpster when the smell of decomposition filled the house. My dad has stood guard all night over the body of a murdered woman whose throat was slit from ear to ear. My dad has knelt down beside a frightened little boy whose parents were being arrested for public intoxication at the bar where they had brought him for the evening and assured him that nothing was his fault, and that everything was going to be all right.
My dad has been thanked twice in his entire career for these things.
And my dad isn't the only police officer who has done countless acts of small and selfless heroism. My dad isn't the only police officer whose reward for his service is more grisliness to witness, more messes to clean up, more criminals released to the streets by juries of idiots, more insults from an ungrateful public, more silence to keep because no one will or wants to understand.
And yet we always expect the police to be there. We expect them to show up and save us when we want them. When it's our lives on the line, we expect that the cops will come and kick ass. But only when it's convenient for us.
We expect these men and women, who see the worst of humanity day after day, to be soldiers on duty (but sophisticated ones) and civilians off duty (but oh-so-very sophisticated ones). We expect them to put away the sorrow, the rage and the adrenaline in their lockers at the station before coming out as Joe Meek. We hold them to a standard not even attainable, largely, by the active military. Police officers don't live in barracks where they can blow off steam at the end of the day free from the scrutiny of the general public. They go home to their families. They rejoin society. They go out to bars with their friends -- friends who, for the most part, have no clue how horrific cops' jobs really are.
LEAVE THE COPS ALONE, people. Sure, this particular incident is unfortunate. The guy was indiscreet. (He was also in a nearly empty bar, so let's not act as though he were making an announcement from a stage.) BUT the average softy pudgy-fingered fatass who spends his or her day plopped down in front of a computer surfing articles doesn't know what coping with dangerous and sad situations involves. We love to quote trite old sayings like "laughter is the best medicine," but we don't know how true that IS. Sometimes the only way to emerge on the other side of something horrible is to make a macabre joke about it. You must laugh, or you go insane, or die. Maybe it looks like a severe and sickening lack of compassion; it's also a way of keeping the self intact in the face of overwhelming trauma.
The reaction to this article seems to me to be focusing more on the fact of what this officer said than where he said it -- as if his greatest offense is having said something offensive. Watch out, people -- Big Brother is obviously watching. Who among us makes tasteless jokes about his or her coworkers, customers, clients and bosses after a frustrating day at work, sitting around the bar at happy hour? The subject matter may be vastly different, but the framework is identical. Open the door to one precedent and more will follow.
We don't have to deal with the danger and the horror that cops do for two reasons: the right to bear arms, and the cops. They're fronting us. They're taking the full brutal impact of the weight of all the evil and recklessness and selfishness and meanness that humanity is capable of committing. They're standing around us with their shields locked together so that you and I can sit back and criticize how they do it.
And you know what? Even if this guy loses his job, the rest of the cops will continue to protect and serve. We treat them like crap, we hate them for writing us tickets, we don't want them around most of the time. And yes -- some of them are arrogant, some of them are power hungry, some of them are jerks and alcoholics and wife beaters and cheaters. They're still out there protecting our ungrateful persons.
That job of protecting us comes even harder to them because of the newspapers. A responsible press gives all sides to a story. A responsible press fosters understanding. A responsible press is concerned with justice -- but not a lopsided justice. Where police officers manage the effects of human misery, reporters traffic in it. No cop loves to bring bad news to a grieving parent or sibling or child. It doesn't grow easier with time. But somehow the members of the media thrive on watching a human being's reaction to pain. Case in point: This mother only saw the video because a reporter called her, brought her into the news station and showed it to her for the first time while taking notes on her reaction. As if this human woman were no more than fodder for a sick experiment in negative attention. Like a lab rat. And no member of the press is going to rush into a hostage situation to save you or me. They'll watch it happen and write about it.
The men and women who do the hardest work to keep our society safe and orderly for us never hear any praise for their work. They do, however, receive an absurdist backlash of shock and horror whenever, from time to time, an incident like this, a slipped story, reveals how difficult their jobs really are. And anyone who looks at a survivor of tragedy laughing about that tragedy (and yes, cops are survivors of tragedy -- more than you or I will ever face) and honestly believes that laughter comes from a source of humor and not profound sensitivity to suffering not only has no human compassion, but has no human intelligence.
We love our military, and we should. They're keeping us safe the world over. But the police are keeping us safe HERE. Let's cut them some slack, or at least make an effort to understand. And when incidents like this are all blown out of proportion, let's pin the blame where it actually belongs: not on the spark, but on the people standing by fanning the fire.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Mark Darcy is right.
I hadn't had an evening this taxing since just before Christmas. As I rushed from computer to computer and phone to phone, grabbing up abandoned books and radioing for assistance at the information desk and dragging impatient customers to the end of their searches, I longed for the quiet comfort of my robe and slippies, a mimosa and eternally rewatched episodes of Arrested Development with my kitty on the couch.
Busy evenings don't usually bother me; but on this one each beep of the phone, every "Do you work here?" jarred me from intense contemplation and I found myself continually repressing a reactive grimace and eye roll whenever a customer flagged me down.
That morning I had received the emailed eHarmony newsletter, the only remnant of my brief foray into the world of online dating back in 2006. EHarmony had disenchanted me when its lobbied eight thousand compatibility matchup points only yielded me barely literate jocks -- my just desserts, I suppose, for having marked that I would rather hike than clean the bathroom. I let my subscription to the webservice lapse, but every month it faithfully sends me a newsletter with interesting tips on dating and relationships (including how to handle a one-night stand -- in that moment I decided that I was entirely justified in my dissatisfaction with the self-reported dedicatedly Christian program). As I scanned it briefly before relegating it to the trash bin, I saw an interview with Steve Harvey for his new book, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man.
Fresh into my first real dating relationship (shhh), I found that, as a perfectionist by nature, I fought a constant state of nervousness over how to conduct myself. Was it all right to call him, or should I keep waiting for him to call me? If I called him, would I look needy? If I called him, would he lose interest because he no longer needed to pursue? If I didn't call him, would that send signals that he didn't need to pay attention to me? How long should I let a round of silence go before getting worried? What if I simply wanted to call him, just to talk? If I called him and it went to voicemail, what should I say? (All of these questions relate to the telephone because he lived three hours south of Erie, rendering slightly more Bridget Jonesian questions of midnight drive-bys to check whether or not he's home inapplicable.) What went on in his head? How should I interpret his behavior?
So at the bookstore that night I seized on Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. I read it cover to cover in one night, deciding that I found it very educational, and mentally calculating as I went how well my relationship measured up to what Harvey said was good. The next night I bought Boundaries in Dating by Cloud and Townsend, to broaden my relationship education.
Gradually I found myself confused. Both books had what looked like excellent points; but at times those excellent points were at odds with each other, and I didn't know which to choose as the "right" point. As little yellow flags flashed along the way in my relationship, I started glancing at other titles in the self-help section as I straightened them during my evenings in the bookstore. Why Men Marry Bitches, How to Make Him Fall in Love with You in 90 Seconds or Less, What to Do When He Won't Commit, Men with Vulnerability Issues, it went on and on and on and on. I found myself panicking. Omigod. What next? I'm not a bitch. I'm nice. Does that mean he won't fall in love with me? Should I get meaner? He hasn't called in awhile. Is it because he's focused on his career, because he's just not that into me, or because he has vulnerability issues? Should I be patient? Should I assert myself more? Should I bail?
I started to really hate dating.
In one moment one evening as I held a stack of psychology and self-help relationship books in my arms and wondered how many other women were going through the same emotional psychosis and felt my terrors spinning around and taking all reason with them, I silently shrieked a desperate prayer, an old, familiar, often-used and simple one: HELP!!!
And suddenly snapped into a space of calm and peace and sarcasm and rationality. My inner voice, my real one, asked me, with a heavy sauce of irony, How many books are there? How many of them say different things? If these books actually worked there wouldn't be so many of them. Stop being neurotic.
Right. No more neurotic. In about a second I ran down the mental list of all the successful relationships I know, and started snickering. None of them succeeded because of one of these books. No one I've ever met has ever told me, "I met my husband/boyfriend/fiance because one of these books told me how to catch him and keep him"; the relationship just happened. Boy meets girl. It works out. Seems to be basically that simple.
So, having shed the previous relationship, I am free to try a new approach: Wing it and don't give a shit. (Linnéa says this should be our singles' Sunday school class motto.) I make excellent, solid, healthy and loving friendships without the help of a book, and in those friendships I feel perfectly free to be myself in all my range of emotions, strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures; and am always greatly interested in getting to know the other person. No worries, no pressure. Why should my approach to relationships be any different?
Besides, I enjoy being single. My return to it has refreshed me. For the first time in three months I was able to relax this weekend: Sleep, play with food, hang out with Simon, shower as late as I wanted, wear whatever I wanted. I can go out with a guy if I want, or not go out with him if I don't want. Marriage and family are in my cards, but not right now; I want to have fun dating, enjoy the fun of hanging out before commitment imposes more demands and requires harder work. (That stuff will all be worth it later on, of course; but I want a fun phase to look back on with a smile. I don't want it to be serious from the get-go.)
So...yay! This afternoon I'm going to try my hand at an elaborate Indian meal. I made paneer and thick yogurt last night, I have dried chickpeas soaking in a pan, and a host of interesting and fun ingredients waiting to be turned to something new and magical.
Goody!
Busy evenings don't usually bother me; but on this one each beep of the phone, every "Do you work here?" jarred me from intense contemplation and I found myself continually repressing a reactive grimace and eye roll whenever a customer flagged me down.
That morning I had received the emailed eHarmony newsletter, the only remnant of my brief foray into the world of online dating back in 2006. EHarmony had disenchanted me when its lobbied eight thousand compatibility matchup points only yielded me barely literate jocks -- my just desserts, I suppose, for having marked that I would rather hike than clean the bathroom. I let my subscription to the webservice lapse, but every month it faithfully sends me a newsletter with interesting tips on dating and relationships (including how to handle a one-night stand -- in that moment I decided that I was entirely justified in my dissatisfaction with the self-reported dedicatedly Christian program). As I scanned it briefly before relegating it to the trash bin, I saw an interview with Steve Harvey for his new book, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man.
Fresh into my first real dating relationship (shhh), I found that, as a perfectionist by nature, I fought a constant state of nervousness over how to conduct myself. Was it all right to call him, or should I keep waiting for him to call me? If I called him, would I look needy? If I called him, would he lose interest because he no longer needed to pursue? If I didn't call him, would that send signals that he didn't need to pay attention to me? How long should I let a round of silence go before getting worried? What if I simply wanted to call him, just to talk? If I called him and it went to voicemail, what should I say? (All of these questions relate to the telephone because he lived three hours south of Erie, rendering slightly more Bridget Jonesian questions of midnight drive-bys to check whether or not he's home inapplicable.) What went on in his head? How should I interpret his behavior?
So at the bookstore that night I seized on Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. I read it cover to cover in one night, deciding that I found it very educational, and mentally calculating as I went how well my relationship measured up to what Harvey said was good. The next night I bought Boundaries in Dating by Cloud and Townsend, to broaden my relationship education.
Gradually I found myself confused. Both books had what looked like excellent points; but at times those excellent points were at odds with each other, and I didn't know which to choose as the "right" point. As little yellow flags flashed along the way in my relationship, I started glancing at other titles in the self-help section as I straightened them during my evenings in the bookstore. Why Men Marry Bitches, How to Make Him Fall in Love with You in 90 Seconds or Less, What to Do When He Won't Commit, Men with Vulnerability Issues, it went on and on and on and on. I found myself panicking. Omigod. What next? I'm not a bitch. I'm nice. Does that mean he won't fall in love with me? Should I get meaner? He hasn't called in awhile. Is it because he's focused on his career, because he's just not that into me, or because he has vulnerability issues? Should I be patient? Should I assert myself more? Should I bail?
I started to really hate dating.
In one moment one evening as I held a stack of psychology and self-help relationship books in my arms and wondered how many other women were going through the same emotional psychosis and felt my terrors spinning around and taking all reason with them, I silently shrieked a desperate prayer, an old, familiar, often-used and simple one: HELP!!!
And suddenly snapped into a space of calm and peace and sarcasm and rationality. My inner voice, my real one, asked me, with a heavy sauce of irony, How many books are there? How many of them say different things? If these books actually worked there wouldn't be so many of them. Stop being neurotic.
Right. No more neurotic. In about a second I ran down the mental list of all the successful relationships I know, and started snickering. None of them succeeded because of one of these books. No one I've ever met has ever told me, "I met my husband/boyfriend/fiance because one of these books told me how to catch him and keep him"; the relationship just happened. Boy meets girl. It works out. Seems to be basically that simple.
So, having shed the previous relationship, I am free to try a new approach: Wing it and don't give a shit. (Linnéa says this should be our singles' Sunday school class motto.) I make excellent, solid, healthy and loving friendships without the help of a book, and in those friendships I feel perfectly free to be myself in all my range of emotions, strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures; and am always greatly interested in getting to know the other person. No worries, no pressure. Why should my approach to relationships be any different?
Besides, I enjoy being single. My return to it has refreshed me. For the first time in three months I was able to relax this weekend: Sleep, play with food, hang out with Simon, shower as late as I wanted, wear whatever I wanted. I can go out with a guy if I want, or not go out with him if I don't want. Marriage and family are in my cards, but not right now; I want to have fun dating, enjoy the fun of hanging out before commitment imposes more demands and requires harder work. (That stuff will all be worth it later on, of course; but I want a fun phase to look back on with a smile. I don't want it to be serious from the get-go.)
So...yay! This afternoon I'm going to try my hand at an elaborate Indian meal. I made paneer and thick yogurt last night, I have dried chickpeas soaking in a pan, and a host of interesting and fun ingredients waiting to be turned to something new and magical.
Goody!
i will be brief
I'm spinning a review of The Hazards of Love mentally as I peck away diligently at real estate work, so hopefully that will appear soon. I'm enamored of the album and can't stop listening to it, whether in the car or just in my head.
Meanwhile, I woke this morning feeling loads better about everything, and found myself particularly encouraged by the twelfth and thirteenth chapters of Hebrews, realizing anew that the call to "fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the Father" recognizes the periodic suckiness of life, the periodic feelings of shame and sorrow, and reminds us -- reminds me -- to lock my gaze on the One who knows what all of that is like, and to hold my mind fast to Him who is the answer to all questions.
All shall be well.
Meanwhile, I woke this morning feeling loads better about everything, and found myself particularly encouraged by the twelfth and thirteenth chapters of Hebrews, realizing anew that the call to "fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the Father" recognizes the periodic suckiness of life, the periodic feelings of shame and sorrow, and reminds us -- reminds me -- to lock my gaze on the One who knows what all of that is like, and to hold my mind fast to Him who is the answer to all questions.
All shall be well.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
then the best is unkind
So I have solidly rejoined the ranks of the single. In a sense it was voluntary, and amicable (though no one told me, and I lacked the experience to know, that even amicable breakups have unpleasant internal repercussions well into the wee hours of the morning), and in the concrete I rest in the peace of a rational being.
But I live in the abstract, and in the abstract last night was rough. According to the Myers-Briggs test, my temperament (or one of them; I’m actually two, an even divide, and don’t think the split personality jokes haven’t been running through my head since I rediscovered this over the weekend with Hill, who has the book) has the hardest time finding a mate, and while I find in that a certain sense of relief – I’m not doing something wrong; it’s supposed to be difficult – last night it came with a bitterness, too.
I hate dating, but it’s the only system we have, and so I try. Other people have fun with it, other people enjoy its casual nature and can walk away from an unsuccessful attempt cheerily. I’m not a casual person; I’m only relaxed in accepting others as they are. So dating is never casual for me unless I work extremely hard to maintain an attitude of indifference; it’s much easier for me to make friends. But the guys are never casual about me in the beginning, either, which kind of undermines my attempts at nonchalance. Every time I try this thing, which can often be as uncomfortable as dancing in public, a guy comes along and gets really excited about knowing me, and then with the progression of (not much) time his interest evaporates and he disappears and I never know why.
So then I have a couple of bad days, all the worse because I know that, because I’m an idiot and an optimist and a romantic and a dreamer, however much I’ve learned to balance these traits with a steady ballast of reason, and because I love people, love almost everyone, I know that, idiotically, I’ll always try again, because I believe that one day it will all fall into place, and I’ll know what it means “just to love, and be loved in return.”
But last night I kept wondering, in the self-pitying way we do when things disappoint, why God made this difficulty a part of my nature, a part of my being. I’m sure the answer has something to do with learning lessons and with the compensation of my greater gifts and strengths, depth of feeling and sensitivity to beauty and horror and poetic expression and compassion (my personality type also believes innately that all pleasure must be bought with pain). At the same time that’s pretty damn cold comfort.
I derive a certain justification and distraction from being useful – thankfully I worked at the bookstore last night, and was able to help and make happy some very tired and discouraged people, so I know in the eternal run I’m not a total loss. And an elderly gentleman of the charismatic persuasion arrived with his wife in tow, asking to find a book that apparently did not exist, but as I searched he and I began discussing matters of faith and the church and society and judgmentality and people and love, and he said suddenly, “Boy, you’re precious,” and added a few encouraging words that caught me by surprise so that I had to blink quickly to clear a sudden glaze of tears.
It seems that when things really suck, God sends these strangers to tell me that He loves me. Mom said this morning as I discussed all and sundry of yesterday’s experiences with her that God does that a lot, for me. I surmised that it’s because I don’t publicize to my friends and family when I’m in pain and need love and encouragement; I keep it to myself, or put it on the blog for mostly strangers to read. Mom told me that she has to read my blog to find out how I’m really doing, because even though I talk with her on a daily basis, I never tell her.
Why is it so much easier to bear the kindness of strangers? Is it because I don’t know them and probably won’t ever see them again and therefore cannot be a burden to them, and further won’t feel ashamed of my moment of weakness in needing human help? Is it because most people mistake my need of comfort and encouragement for a need of unsolicited advice, which I hate because I trust my own judgment better and ask for advice only when I want it?
I love communion with other souls, long for it, rejoice in it; I can bear any burden of knowledge that others whisper in my ear or weep onto my shoulder; but I seem to be severely handicapped in whispering into others’ ears or weeping onto others’ shoulders. The people with whom I feel the most free even to go so far as to admit, “I’m sad,” are Hillori, Eigh Ann, Meg and John, and it's taken years to reach that point (I've known Hill for twenty years, Leigh Ann for fourteen, Meg for four and John for seven).
Possibly that explains the compulsion to blog. If someone out there gets it, even if I never know who he or she is, then in a Jungian collective unconscious sense I’m not alone.
Of course I’m looking for the same thing as everyone else: someone who will see through all my smoke and mirrors and love me anyway, with God’s love as well as with his own passion. I just can’t understand why that’s so difficult. I love pretty easily. I know I’m unique, extraordinary in some ways, blah blah blah, but why does that make being known and loved so arduous? (“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?”)
I’m not a needy person. I never will be. It would be nice, though, to have a companion. Someone I can tell, “I’m having a bad day,” who won’t make me talk about it, but who will let me lean on his shoulder (literally) and just sit there for a minute drawing peace from the warmth of human skin. (I’m sure that’s naïve and romantic of me, but it’s what I want.) Maybe I’m not so good at articulating most of the struggles that rage in me almost constantly, but it really soothes the waters to know that I’m loved. Other people’s love, which is to me both their love and God’s love through them, no matter who they are, gives me strength – increases my armor and my arsenal. Otherwise I’m kind of a dry tank. (In large mixing bowl combine metaphors. Beat with wire whisk until blended.)
Since I don’t believe that love is something I should solicit, though, I never ask for it from anyone but God. Maybe that’s unbalanced, too; probably the love which my loved ones have for me would express itself more quickly and readily if I only told them some of the stuff that bothers me.
I’ve spent so much of my life alone. Some of that is in my nature; some of that has been reinforced by injury and disappointment; some of that stems from my otherness from the general population (neither of my personality types accounts for more than one percent of the human race). Most of the time I can deal. I always mind, but I can deal. It’s enough to be able to understand others and love them and rejoice in who they are, enough to have thoughts upon which to reflect and philosophize, enough to have one or two people whose love I have come to trust as unconditional.
Sometimes, though, it really, really sucks not to be understood. And for reasons that I suppose are understandable, it sucks worse when that misunderstanding comes from a guy – because, unlike my female friends, whose presence I can always assume in some capacity, guys seem very intense about me for a short while, enough to persuade my hopes to rise in spite of my better judgment, because they say and do wonderful things, and then they leave, as if knowing me better lends itself to liking me less. But I’m always me. I can’t dissemble; I don’t pretend. And my friends are good friends, people I’ve known for years, who only love me more with the passing of time.
I don’t get it. But since cynicism and despair don’t actually sit well on me for long (I’m already feeling better about it, momentarily at least), I know I’ll keep hoping. Stupidly, perhaps, but inevitably. I believe in love. I believe in the Love that makes all love possible. Someday it will all come to pass, however much it puzzles and hurts and enrages me now. At least I’m well suited to being alone, having grown so used to it; and now that I’m officially free and my weekends are clear, perhaps I can start doing some objective good, benefit others in some way, share the love of God in how I deal with people. And maybe in so doing I can ignore the little rawnesses that come from being treated indifferently or as expendable by people I love who happen to be male. Maybe I’ll learn not to care, find a sort of saintly serenity in learning to give love without receiving it. (Yeah, right. God didn’t build us that way. That’s why we’re supposed to live in community.)
So yeah, that Josh Ritter song, “The Best for the Best,” strikes a chord today. Life in all of its vastness and beauty is supposed to be shared.
“How can one keep warm alone?” And what do I do with the impulse, upon seeing something beautiful, to grab someone’s hand and look with him? When “surprised by joy – impatient as the wind / I turned to share the transport – oh! with whom”?
That was sort of rhetorical. I’ll keep on going. “For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”
But I live in the abstract, and in the abstract last night was rough. According to the Myers-Briggs test, my temperament (or one of them; I’m actually two, an even divide, and don’t think the split personality jokes haven’t been running through my head since I rediscovered this over the weekend with Hill, who has the book) has the hardest time finding a mate, and while I find in that a certain sense of relief – I’m not doing something wrong; it’s supposed to be difficult – last night it came with a bitterness, too.
I hate dating, but it’s the only system we have, and so I try. Other people have fun with it, other people enjoy its casual nature and can walk away from an unsuccessful attempt cheerily. I’m not a casual person; I’m only relaxed in accepting others as they are. So dating is never casual for me unless I work extremely hard to maintain an attitude of indifference; it’s much easier for me to make friends. But the guys are never casual about me in the beginning, either, which kind of undermines my attempts at nonchalance. Every time I try this thing, which can often be as uncomfortable as dancing in public, a guy comes along and gets really excited about knowing me, and then with the progression of (not much) time his interest evaporates and he disappears and I never know why.
So then I have a couple of bad days, all the worse because I know that, because I’m an idiot and an optimist and a romantic and a dreamer, however much I’ve learned to balance these traits with a steady ballast of reason, and because I love people, love almost everyone, I know that, idiotically, I’ll always try again, because I believe that one day it will all fall into place, and I’ll know what it means “just to love, and be loved in return.”
But last night I kept wondering, in the self-pitying way we do when things disappoint, why God made this difficulty a part of my nature, a part of my being. I’m sure the answer has something to do with learning lessons and with the compensation of my greater gifts and strengths, depth of feeling and sensitivity to beauty and horror and poetic expression and compassion (my personality type also believes innately that all pleasure must be bought with pain). At the same time that’s pretty damn cold comfort.
I derive a certain justification and distraction from being useful – thankfully I worked at the bookstore last night, and was able to help and make happy some very tired and discouraged people, so I know in the eternal run I’m not a total loss. And an elderly gentleman of the charismatic persuasion arrived with his wife in tow, asking to find a book that apparently did not exist, but as I searched he and I began discussing matters of faith and the church and society and judgmentality and people and love, and he said suddenly, “Boy, you’re precious,” and added a few encouraging words that caught me by surprise so that I had to blink quickly to clear a sudden glaze of tears.
It seems that when things really suck, God sends these strangers to tell me that He loves me. Mom said this morning as I discussed all and sundry of yesterday’s experiences with her that God does that a lot, for me. I surmised that it’s because I don’t publicize to my friends and family when I’m in pain and need love and encouragement; I keep it to myself, or put it on the blog for mostly strangers to read. Mom told me that she has to read my blog to find out how I’m really doing, because even though I talk with her on a daily basis, I never tell her.
Why is it so much easier to bear the kindness of strangers? Is it because I don’t know them and probably won’t ever see them again and therefore cannot be a burden to them, and further won’t feel ashamed of my moment of weakness in needing human help? Is it because most people mistake my need of comfort and encouragement for a need of unsolicited advice, which I hate because I trust my own judgment better and ask for advice only when I want it?
I love communion with other souls, long for it, rejoice in it; I can bear any burden of knowledge that others whisper in my ear or weep onto my shoulder; but I seem to be severely handicapped in whispering into others’ ears or weeping onto others’ shoulders. The people with whom I feel the most free even to go so far as to admit, “I’m sad,” are Hillori, Eigh Ann, Meg and John, and it's taken years to reach that point (I've known Hill for twenty years, Leigh Ann for fourteen, Meg for four and John for seven).
Possibly that explains the compulsion to blog. If someone out there gets it, even if I never know who he or she is, then in a Jungian collective unconscious sense I’m not alone.
Of course I’m looking for the same thing as everyone else: someone who will see through all my smoke and mirrors and love me anyway, with God’s love as well as with his own passion. I just can’t understand why that’s so difficult. I love pretty easily. I know I’m unique, extraordinary in some ways, blah blah blah, but why does that make being known and loved so arduous? (“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?”)
I’m not a needy person. I never will be. It would be nice, though, to have a companion. Someone I can tell, “I’m having a bad day,” who won’t make me talk about it, but who will let me lean on his shoulder (literally) and just sit there for a minute drawing peace from the warmth of human skin. (I’m sure that’s naïve and romantic of me, but it’s what I want.) Maybe I’m not so good at articulating most of the struggles that rage in me almost constantly, but it really soothes the waters to know that I’m loved. Other people’s love, which is to me both their love and God’s love through them, no matter who they are, gives me strength – increases my armor and my arsenal. Otherwise I’m kind of a dry tank. (In large mixing bowl combine metaphors. Beat with wire whisk until blended.)
Since I don’t believe that love is something I should solicit, though, I never ask for it from anyone but God. Maybe that’s unbalanced, too; probably the love which my loved ones have for me would express itself more quickly and readily if I only told them some of the stuff that bothers me.
I’ve spent so much of my life alone. Some of that is in my nature; some of that has been reinforced by injury and disappointment; some of that stems from my otherness from the general population (neither of my personality types accounts for more than one percent of the human race). Most of the time I can deal. I always mind, but I can deal. It’s enough to be able to understand others and love them and rejoice in who they are, enough to have thoughts upon which to reflect and philosophize, enough to have one or two people whose love I have come to trust as unconditional.
Sometimes, though, it really, really sucks not to be understood. And for reasons that I suppose are understandable, it sucks worse when that misunderstanding comes from a guy – because, unlike my female friends, whose presence I can always assume in some capacity, guys seem very intense about me for a short while, enough to persuade my hopes to rise in spite of my better judgment, because they say and do wonderful things, and then they leave, as if knowing me better lends itself to liking me less. But I’m always me. I can’t dissemble; I don’t pretend. And my friends are good friends, people I’ve known for years, who only love me more with the passing of time.
I don’t get it. But since cynicism and despair don’t actually sit well on me for long (I’m already feeling better about it, momentarily at least), I know I’ll keep hoping. Stupidly, perhaps, but inevitably. I believe in love. I believe in the Love that makes all love possible. Someday it will all come to pass, however much it puzzles and hurts and enrages me now. At least I’m well suited to being alone, having grown so used to it; and now that I’m officially free and my weekends are clear, perhaps I can start doing some objective good, benefit others in some way, share the love of God in how I deal with people. And maybe in so doing I can ignore the little rawnesses that come from being treated indifferently or as expendable by people I love who happen to be male. Maybe I’ll learn not to care, find a sort of saintly serenity in learning to give love without receiving it. (Yeah, right. God didn’t build us that way. That’s why we’re supposed to live in community.)
So yeah, that Josh Ritter song, “The Best for the Best,” strikes a chord today. Life in all of its vastness and beauty is supposed to be shared.
“How can one keep warm alone?” And what do I do with the impulse, upon seeing something beautiful, to grab someone’s hand and look with him? When “surprised by joy – impatient as the wind / I turned to share the transport – oh! with whom”?
That was sort of rhetorical. I’ll keep on going. “For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
rumbly in my tumbly
All I've been able to think about today has been the huge and amazingly delicious bowl of Dolsot Bibimbap I devoured at the Asian market in D.C. on Saturday. It was hearty, filling, spicy, wholesome, savory, and just plain freaking good.
Fortunately the internet abounds with recipes, but I know I won't be satisfied until I've acquired a Korean cookbook.
In other news, Facebook is possibly the most brilliant and entertaining time waster yet invented, and I filed my taxes admittedly under the wire, but on time. (Why finish something early when you save more time putting it off till the last minute? Procrastinators, I maintain, are slightly more stressed out in the moment but far more efficient in their time management. Why do something in three weeks that is easily done in three days, or three hours?) I'm also getting a wee pittance back from greedy old Caesar, which ought to help my new David Ramsey-esque financial plan to snowball my way out of debt (thanks for the tips, Hill).
Ohhh man...I can just see the steam wafting out of the sizzling hot crockery bowl. I'm hungry. (And I love eating with chopsticks. This also means I'll need one of those bowls...half the reason I love exploring new cuisines is that I get to buy authentic and strange kitchen and dining implements, which usually look really cool as well as serve the wonderful purpose of facilitating the consumption of yummy food.)
Oh, stop growling, stomach. You're not helping. Maybe Rachmaninoff's Vespers will distract you.
Fortunately the internet abounds with recipes, but I know I won't be satisfied until I've acquired a Korean cookbook.
In other news, Facebook is possibly the most brilliant and entertaining time waster yet invented, and I filed my taxes admittedly under the wire, but on time. (Why finish something early when you save more time putting it off till the last minute? Procrastinators, I maintain, are slightly more stressed out in the moment but far more efficient in their time management. Why do something in three weeks that is easily done in three days, or three hours?) I'm also getting a wee pittance back from greedy old Caesar, which ought to help my new David Ramsey-esque financial plan to snowball my way out of debt (thanks for the tips, Hill).
Ohhh man...I can just see the steam wafting out of the sizzling hot crockery bowl. I'm hungry. (And I love eating with chopsticks. This also means I'll need one of those bowls...half the reason I love exploring new cuisines is that I get to buy authentic and strange kitchen and dining implements, which usually look really cool as well as serve the wonderful purpose of facilitating the consumption of yummy food.)
Oh, stop growling, stomach. You're not helping. Maybe Rachmaninoff's Vespers will distract you.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
the wanting comes in waves
Fabulous weekend in D.C. Seeing Hill, John and Eigh Ann (I only use the Oxford comma to distinguish separate pairs in a list), three of my very dearest friends, and the three people to whom I speak the most often, brought so much relaxation, joy and happiness that I didn't want to come back. (Evil Queen Hillori strikes again. I asked her, as we drove through Old Town in Alexandria and the beauty of the architecture and the coming-alive young greenness of the gardens and trees elicited almost pained exclamations from my chest, "You're trying to get me to move here, aren't you?" Without even a trace of chagrin she said, "Yep!" John asked, "Is it working?" and I said, "Yes...")
A good part of me longs for some city life while I'm still single. D.C. is lovely and boasts so much to do. We visited an Asian market sporting an auditorium of staring fish and an excellent Korean cafe, walked around Old Town looking at the pier and the shops, and stuck our heads in every grocery store within a five mile radius (I count myself lucky to have a childhood best friend whose idea of a grand old time is looking at expensive food). The coffee shops and bars and restaurants, the people walking to and fro, the brick sidewalks, the history, the loveliness, the sleepy old charm...
Yes, I want to live there.
So, since my plan is to go to grad school for my Next Step to Wherever (I still have no idea where I'm supposed to wind up, but I know grad school is the starting point, so I'm taking a miniature Kierkegaardian leap of faith), I have as my rough sketch for the next few years application to programs within or around D.C. for the fall of 2010, and a relocation to that fair city. In the meantime I will live with the 'rents and pay off my debt.
It has been wonderful to return to Erie, to make my peace with old ghosts and old demons, to "bury my ballast" and learn to live free. But the familiar restlessness is surging up within my soul, those waters that never lie still, and I know I won't stay. I used to think of myself as a person who craved stability and security, and as far as my relationships are concerned that remains entirely true; but I hate staying in one place too long. I realized awhile ago that the reason I have refused to buy a house all these years, the reason I have taken these minimum-wage jobs for which I am entirely overqualified and which usually bore me, is that I don't want to be tied down. While I'm sorting out where I'm supposed to go and what the ultimate goal is supposed to be, I want to "keep my exits wide." At any moment's notice I could pull up stakes and leave, and that knowledge is always massively comforting to me.
And this time when I leave my birthplace I won't be running away; I'll simply be leaving, and taking myself away whole. I like that knowledge too.
Since I took yesterday off for the long drive back, today is my Monday and I'm grouchy and prone to irritability. Intense emotions good and bad always give me a headache, and my back dislikes eight hour car trips. It doesn't help my mood that I have taxes to anticipate tonight; that I'm hollow-eyed with exhaustion from my wonderful visit; and that I'm back in the land of perpetual February with not a green thing to be seen but the deadness of last year's grass. (I really didn't want to come back.) I keep up regularly by telephone with my deepest friends; but actually seeing them and being able to touch them illuminated the vast difference between telephone and real presence. Also they're the majority of the few people with whom I can share company in easy silence, which is better ignored on the telephone (and which I ignore because I hardly ever get my fill of that easy silence with anyone here, and the reminder is painful to my introverted heart). I miss them more today than I did on Thursday. (I really didn't want to come back.)
The Decemberists' new album, The Hazards of Love, is simply amazing, and also the perfect mood piece for the melancholy bittersweet mood which stole upon me yesterday as I left the city.
A good part of me longs for some city life while I'm still single. D.C. is lovely and boasts so much to do. We visited an Asian market sporting an auditorium of staring fish and an excellent Korean cafe, walked around Old Town looking at the pier and the shops, and stuck our heads in every grocery store within a five mile radius (I count myself lucky to have a childhood best friend whose idea of a grand old time is looking at expensive food). The coffee shops and bars and restaurants, the people walking to and fro, the brick sidewalks, the history, the loveliness, the sleepy old charm...
Yes, I want to live there.
So, since my plan is to go to grad school for my Next Step to Wherever (I still have no idea where I'm supposed to wind up, but I know grad school is the starting point, so I'm taking a miniature Kierkegaardian leap of faith), I have as my rough sketch for the next few years application to programs within or around D.C. for the fall of 2010, and a relocation to that fair city. In the meantime I will live with the 'rents and pay off my debt.
It has been wonderful to return to Erie, to make my peace with old ghosts and old demons, to "bury my ballast" and learn to live free. But the familiar restlessness is surging up within my soul, those waters that never lie still, and I know I won't stay. I used to think of myself as a person who craved stability and security, and as far as my relationships are concerned that remains entirely true; but I hate staying in one place too long. I realized awhile ago that the reason I have refused to buy a house all these years, the reason I have taken these minimum-wage jobs for which I am entirely overqualified and which usually bore me, is that I don't want to be tied down. While I'm sorting out where I'm supposed to go and what the ultimate goal is supposed to be, I want to "keep my exits wide." At any moment's notice I could pull up stakes and leave, and that knowledge is always massively comforting to me.
And this time when I leave my birthplace I won't be running away; I'll simply be leaving, and taking myself away whole. I like that knowledge too.
Since I took yesterday off for the long drive back, today is my Monday and I'm grouchy and prone to irritability. Intense emotions good and bad always give me a headache, and my back dislikes eight hour car trips. It doesn't help my mood that I have taxes to anticipate tonight; that I'm hollow-eyed with exhaustion from my wonderful visit; and that I'm back in the land of perpetual February with not a green thing to be seen but the deadness of last year's grass. (I really didn't want to come back.) I keep up regularly by telephone with my deepest friends; but actually seeing them and being able to touch them illuminated the vast difference between telephone and real presence. Also they're the majority of the few people with whom I can share company in easy silence, which is better ignored on the telephone (and which I ignore because I hardly ever get my fill of that easy silence with anyone here, and the reminder is painful to my introverted heart). I miss them more today than I did on Thursday. (I really didn't want to come back.)
The Decemberists' new album, The Hazards of Love, is simply amazing, and also the perfect mood piece for the melancholy bittersweet mood which stole upon me yesterday as I left the city.
Friday, April 10, 2009
various little tidbits of no particular import
Listy sort of day, mostly because I must be brief: Today is only a half-day at work and I have much to do before I take off to visit Hill and John and possibly Eigh Ann in DC!
Books I'm reading (I'm extremely ADD when it comes to reading books, or perhaps whimsical would be a better word: I like a book for each mood, and then I have the books I'm trying to read which I know I should but require more energy than I usually care to spare, and the junk books I know I shouldn't read but require no energy at all and entertain me endlessly):
1. Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin (I've been halfway through this for two years and I don't know why I won't finish it, it's completely gorgeous);
2. Works of Love, Søren Kierkegaard (I've been on this one for awhile too);
3. New Moon, Stephanie Meyer (a re-read, and yes, this is one of the junk brain candy books);
4. From Dead to Worse, Charlaine Harris (pseudo-junk brain candy, but really good pseudo-junk brain candy);
5. Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews, edited by Jonathan Cott;
6. John Adams, David McCullough;
7. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, Lynne Truss (I just started this, and oh, boy, am I excited);
8. The Year of Living Biblically, A.J. Jacobs (just started this one as well).
I'm sure I'm missing a couple, but at the moment, that's the list. And that's just my active, I've-actually-cracked-these-books-open queue....I have stacks and stacks awaiting my attention just in the trailer. So many books...so little time...
Oo, and I REALLY want to read (and possess) Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English by John McWhorter. I passionately adore my native language, and anything extolling its power and beauty, and examining its history and trivia, gets my motor running in a fiery way. Also the book is pretty.
Alack, the finances demand just a little more waiting. (I hate wait...)
Music to Which I'm Listening (or to Which I am about to Listen)
Hazards of Love, the Decemberists;
All-Night Vigil, Rachmaninoff;
Gloria, John Rutter.
Etc.
And that's all for now, folks. The past nine days, with their startling intensity and wide range of emotional gambits, have worn me out (but overall quite happily), and so I go to wear myself out further with travel ("There's nothing that the road cannot heal"), fellowship and fun. At Christmas I saw Hill only briefly for a few hours, and we hadn't seen each other in...oh God, at least three years; I haven't seen John in nearly two; and I haven't seen Eigh Ann in approximately two either. And these are three of my nearest and dearest with whom I speak on an extremely frequent and regular basis. (Sometimes I wonder if face-to-face relationships will grow impossible for me to maintain because I'm so accustomed to developing and maintaining my closest relationships over the phone.)
I'm looking forward to the open highway in the sunshine. A few weeks ago I finally tired of boring flat hair and hurled myself into a beauty salon with all the desperation of a thirsty man flinging himself into a stream, and came out with considerably long hair cut in random layers and tumbling about gently with loose styled curls. Immediately thereafter I purchased a bunch of hair products and a flatiron (you can curl hair with it, who knew?), and now I love breezing around with pretty hair. I never wore it down before, and now I wear it down all the time -- in fact, the days when I don't have time to fuss with it, no matter how well-dressed I am I feel like I'm walking around in sweatpants.
The point of that roundabout paragraph is that it's going to be fun to drive along with the windows cracked and my hair blowing in whatever breeze the temperature allows me to enjoy.
And underlying and infusing that happiness is the strange stark sorrow, the strange fierce joy of the paradox of the life that only comes through death, of the wait for salvation, of breath held in three hours of midday darkness, of things finished and things begun, of helplessness and propitiation, of the straining muscles, the broken skin, the blood and sweat of God soaking into temporal wood, temporal soil, of earthquakes and rent curtains, of the shock of holiness laid bare for human eyes, of the soul waiting more than watchmen wait for the morning, of the morning coming, and yet to come.
Exerpt from East Coker, in Honor of Good Friday
IV
The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.
Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.
The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.
The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.
The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.
V
So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it.
And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion.
And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
~ T. S. Eliot, from "East Coker," Four Quartets
Books I'm reading (I'm extremely ADD when it comes to reading books, or perhaps whimsical would be a better word: I like a book for each mood, and then I have the books I'm trying to read which I know I should but require more energy than I usually care to spare, and the junk books I know I shouldn't read but require no energy at all and entertain me endlessly):
1. Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin (I've been halfway through this for two years and I don't know why I won't finish it, it's completely gorgeous);
2. Works of Love, Søren Kierkegaard (I've been on this one for awhile too);
3. New Moon, Stephanie Meyer (a re-read, and yes, this is one of the junk brain candy books);
4. From Dead to Worse, Charlaine Harris (pseudo-junk brain candy, but really good pseudo-junk brain candy);
5. Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews, edited by Jonathan Cott;
6. John Adams, David McCullough;
7. Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, Lynne Truss (I just started this, and oh, boy, am I excited);
8. The Year of Living Biblically, A.J. Jacobs (just started this one as well).
I'm sure I'm missing a couple, but at the moment, that's the list. And that's just my active, I've-actually-cracked-these-books-open queue....I have stacks and stacks awaiting my attention just in the trailer. So many books...so little time...
Oo, and I REALLY want to read (and possess) Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English by John McWhorter. I passionately adore my native language, and anything extolling its power and beauty, and examining its history and trivia, gets my motor running in a fiery way. Also the book is pretty.
Alack, the finances demand just a little more waiting. (I hate wait...)
Music to Which I'm Listening (or to Which I am about to Listen)
Hazards of Love, the Decemberists;
All-Night Vigil, Rachmaninoff;
Gloria, John Rutter.
Etc.
And that's all for now, folks. The past nine days, with their startling intensity and wide range of emotional gambits, have worn me out (but overall quite happily), and so I go to wear myself out further with travel ("There's nothing that the road cannot heal"), fellowship and fun. At Christmas I saw Hill only briefly for a few hours, and we hadn't seen each other in...oh God, at least three years; I haven't seen John in nearly two; and I haven't seen Eigh Ann in approximately two either. And these are three of my nearest and dearest with whom I speak on an extremely frequent and regular basis. (Sometimes I wonder if face-to-face relationships will grow impossible for me to maintain because I'm so accustomed to developing and maintaining my closest relationships over the phone.)
I'm looking forward to the open highway in the sunshine. A few weeks ago I finally tired of boring flat hair and hurled myself into a beauty salon with all the desperation of a thirsty man flinging himself into a stream, and came out with considerably long hair cut in random layers and tumbling about gently with loose styled curls. Immediately thereafter I purchased a bunch of hair products and a flatiron (you can curl hair with it, who knew?), and now I love breezing around with pretty hair. I never wore it down before, and now I wear it down all the time -- in fact, the days when I don't have time to fuss with it, no matter how well-dressed I am I feel like I'm walking around in sweatpants.
The point of that roundabout paragraph is that it's going to be fun to drive along with the windows cracked and my hair blowing in whatever breeze the temperature allows me to enjoy.
And underlying and infusing that happiness is the strange stark sorrow, the strange fierce joy of the paradox of the life that only comes through death, of the wait for salvation, of breath held in three hours of midday darkness, of things finished and things begun, of helplessness and propitiation, of the straining muscles, the broken skin, the blood and sweat of God soaking into temporal wood, temporal soil, of earthquakes and rent curtains, of the shock of holiness laid bare for human eyes, of the soul waiting more than watchmen wait for the morning, of the morning coming, and yet to come.
Exerpt from East Coker, in Honor of Good Friday
IV
The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.
Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.
The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.
The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.
The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.
V
So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it.
And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion.
And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
~ T. S. Eliot, from "East Coker," Four Quartets
Thursday, April 09, 2009
just for fun
April Villanelle
I tried to paint my toenails salmon pink.
I blended red and cotton candy hues.
It wore right off; I don't know what to think.
I stubbed my toe so fast I couldn't blink
and viewed the gooey smudge with tight-lipped rue.
So much for painting toenails salmon pink.
I tried again. The heavily sweet stink
of acetone made breathing hard to do.
I felt a little high, and couldn't think.
While one coat dried I wandered to the sink
to fill a glass with water. Feeling blue
I thought again of toenails painted pink.
I longed for summer sun, the lake's dark ink
and sandy toenails flashing, chromed and new...
the thought wore off, in winter hard to think.
I wondered, next day, if I'd reached the brink
with all my efforts ravaged by tight shoes.
I tried to paint my toenails salmon pink --
It wore right off; I hate the world, I think.
I tried to paint my toenails salmon pink.
I blended red and cotton candy hues.
It wore right off; I don't know what to think.
I stubbed my toe so fast I couldn't blink
and viewed the gooey smudge with tight-lipped rue.
So much for painting toenails salmon pink.
I tried again. The heavily sweet stink
of acetone made breathing hard to do.
I felt a little high, and couldn't think.
While one coat dried I wandered to the sink
to fill a glass with water. Feeling blue
I thought again of toenails painted pink.
I longed for summer sun, the lake's dark ink
and sandy toenails flashing, chromed and new...
the thought wore off, in winter hard to think.
I wondered, next day, if I'd reached the brink
with all my efforts ravaged by tight shoes.
I tried to paint my toenails salmon pink --
It wore right off; I hate the world, I think.
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
with clear vision
Excellent day yesterday. Good things kept happening all over the place, despite a crazy day at the office, and I found myself continually astonished at the blessings that kept exploding all around me (exploding in a good way -- think, not backpack bomb, but one of those fast-forward minifilms of a forest moving from winter into spring: BOOM! flower! BOOM! baby birds!).
Among other excitements, the county in which I live has assembled a committee to select a poet laureate who will not only be a really great poet but help develop a program (with funding) for a greater appreciation of poetry and the arts. Applications are taken up to June 1, and I plan to have mine in as soon as they release the criteria on the county website. There's a little money in it, and talk about an amazing thing to put on a resume and on grad school applications. So it's only one county in one state of one country, but I call that an excellent start.
I also accepted a third job yesterday, grading English compositions for an online college, so I think my goal of paying off my debt in a year might actually be feasible. I get to work at my leisure, and from home or anywhere. An old, old friend referred me to the program, so I submitted my resume and a fabulous cover letter on Monday night, got an email back from the head of the department yesterday afternoon, spoke with her on the phone, and that was it. She’s sending me paperwork in the mail, I start training next week, and the week after that I should be grading.
The other tickler about this job, besides its nature and its potential as a good resume-padder (and its keepability upon such events as returning to grad school, which I plan to do in the fall of 2010) is that the online college is based out of Scranton, PA, so now I feel warmly connected to the good folks of The Office.
For the rest, I have a great decision lined up for execution as soon as possible, and I’m excited to enjoy my life for all it’s worth. Last night ended on a happy note, and I woke up in a chipper mood. Soon I will have more money in the bank, enough to pay my debts and tithe and save and still have some fun, I can live on my own again in approximately a year, and I have a direction. Opportunities are bursting open all around me, I’m intensely glad for the people in my life, I like my jobs, I’m writing again, I’m free and all my own, I am guided and loved by the true and living God, and just at the moment, all manner of thing is well.
Among other excitements, the county in which I live has assembled a committee to select a poet laureate who will not only be a really great poet but help develop a program (with funding) for a greater appreciation of poetry and the arts. Applications are taken up to June 1, and I plan to have mine in as soon as they release the criteria on the county website. There's a little money in it, and talk about an amazing thing to put on a resume and on grad school applications. So it's only one county in one state of one country, but I call that an excellent start.
I also accepted a third job yesterday, grading English compositions for an online college, so I think my goal of paying off my debt in a year might actually be feasible. I get to work at my leisure, and from home or anywhere. An old, old friend referred me to the program, so I submitted my resume and a fabulous cover letter on Monday night, got an email back from the head of the department yesterday afternoon, spoke with her on the phone, and that was it. She’s sending me paperwork in the mail, I start training next week, and the week after that I should be grading.
The other tickler about this job, besides its nature and its potential as a good resume-padder (and its keepability upon such events as returning to grad school, which I plan to do in the fall of 2010) is that the online college is based out of Scranton, PA, so now I feel warmly connected to the good folks of The Office.
For the rest, I have a great decision lined up for execution as soon as possible, and I’m excited to enjoy my life for all it’s worth. Last night ended on a happy note, and I woke up in a chipper mood. Soon I will have more money in the bank, enough to pay my debts and tithe and save and still have some fun, I can live on my own again in approximately a year, and I have a direction. Opportunities are bursting open all around me, I’m intensely glad for the people in my life, I like my jobs, I’m writing again, I’m free and all my own, I am guided and loved by the true and living God, and just at the moment, all manner of thing is well.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
harumph harumph
Today everyone's modus operandi appears to be to channel as perfectly as possible the spirit of Oscar the Grouch. Not that I blame us: Snow litters the ground like bird poop and won't go away, and it doesn't seem that we'll get enough to surpass the all-time heaviest annual snowfall in Erie recorded history, so I fail to see the point.
On days like these I want nothing more than to sprawl on the couch in voluminous pajamas and fuzzy slippers, watching something rubbishy on TV and picking at the keys of my laptop with a big gourd of yerba mate bubbling on the coffee table and an inscrutable sphinx of a Simon curled up beside me looking like the happiest creature on God's inexplicably white earth, because his Mommy is home and nothing else matters.
Soon...soon.
On days like these I want nothing more than to sprawl on the couch in voluminous pajamas and fuzzy slippers, watching something rubbishy on TV and picking at the keys of my laptop with a big gourd of yerba mate bubbling on the coffee table and an inscrutable sphinx of a Simon curled up beside me looking like the happiest creature on God's inexplicably white earth, because his Mommy is home and nothing else matters.
Soon...soon.
Monday, April 06, 2009
ordinary things
For the past six months I have had the luck to live in my grandmother's mobile home (one of those other things the foolish young Sarah said she would never do, and then did -- I think the words "I will never" trigger a cosmic chain reaction designed to orchestrate the patterns of the universe in an intricate and complex web of irony) in the interim period between her move to an assisted living facility and the sale of the place.
I look on it as a grace. In recuperating from the difficulties of the past year I needed “a room of my own,” a transitional period between living alone and returning temporarily to the parental nest. Being forced to my native soil, bogged down by a depression so deep I believe I would have needed hospitalization had I stayed in the Midwest any longer, and admitting what in my mind amounted to not just one, but many defeats, stung enough without yielding up my independence entirely and all at once. The trailer afforded a quiet place to curl in on myself and heal.
The time, though, has come for a new kind of grace. By the end of the month I will have once again taken up residence in the room I have called mine since the birth of my little sister when I was three. I have my trepidations, and so do my parents. Our tastes and habits tend to differ in much the same way the diets of rabbits and trees differ; my pride will suffer; conflict will occur. Fortunately we’ve all grown rather adept at conflict resolution, thanks to multitudes of hours in therapy over the past seven years, so all of it will be surmountable. And no one can deny the practical necessity of the move; monetary circumstances demand it.
Even though I have started to feel a burn in my tear ducts when I do simple things like put away the clean silverware and realize that soon I won’t use my own silverware, my own dishes, for an indeterminate length of time (oh, my God, I have worked so hard to gather my own things, and I love my own things, how can I bear to put them in storage?), I recognize the benefits implicit in the upcoming arrangement. One of my concerns, as I grow more and more settled into living alone, is that I've forgotten how to live with people. Singular singleness, as opposed to singleness with roommates, allows for an ossification of selfishness -- not in an evil kind of way, but more as the nature of the situation. As Hugh Grant says in About a Boy, "I'm not putting myself first -- there is no one else, it's just me."
As things now stand, and have stood, I don't have to consult anyone at any time for any reason. I don't have to arrange my schedule to accommodate someone else's; I don't have to take anyone's preferences into account when I listen to music or watch TV (at whatever volume I like), I can cook anything I want for dinner, I can stay up as late, or go to bed as early, as I please. I don't have to share space or possessions. Everything is mine. The freedom is certainly delicious, and I will miss it terribly; at the same time, I know I will grow in ways I couldn't if I lived alone indefinitely.
Simultaneously I have no intentions of remaining in my parents' house longer than necessary. That's not desirable for anyone. This move is to help me save money and pay off my debt; and when the next thing comes along, or when I pursue the next thing, whichever comes first (I have plans in the works, oh yes, precious), I am once again hurtling out of the nest with wings unfurled.
And it's not going to be bad. I like my folks, and I like their pets, and Simon will adjust once again (though I'm a little nervous of how he and my parents' new puppy are going to react upon introduction. She's intensely curious and he's intensely anti-dog), and I'll at least be able to sleep in my very own big grown-up bed. Mom and Dad and I are going to sit down and talk about space arrangements, and where I can keep necessities like my kitchen implements without them being horribly in the way, and all the logistics of a minor household expansion.
At least I'll have unlimited internet access for the first time in eighteen months! That's a HUGE bonus.
I look on it as a grace. In recuperating from the difficulties of the past year I needed “a room of my own,” a transitional period between living alone and returning temporarily to the parental nest. Being forced to my native soil, bogged down by a depression so deep I believe I would have needed hospitalization had I stayed in the Midwest any longer, and admitting what in my mind amounted to not just one, but many defeats, stung enough without yielding up my independence entirely and all at once. The trailer afforded a quiet place to curl in on myself and heal.
The time, though, has come for a new kind of grace. By the end of the month I will have once again taken up residence in the room I have called mine since the birth of my little sister when I was three. I have my trepidations, and so do my parents. Our tastes and habits tend to differ in much the same way the diets of rabbits and trees differ; my pride will suffer; conflict will occur. Fortunately we’ve all grown rather adept at conflict resolution, thanks to multitudes of hours in therapy over the past seven years, so all of it will be surmountable. And no one can deny the practical necessity of the move; monetary circumstances demand it.
Even though I have started to feel a burn in my tear ducts when I do simple things like put away the clean silverware and realize that soon I won’t use my own silverware, my own dishes, for an indeterminate length of time (oh, my God, I have worked so hard to gather my own things, and I love my own things, how can I bear to put them in storage?), I recognize the benefits implicit in the upcoming arrangement. One of my concerns, as I grow more and more settled into living alone, is that I've forgotten how to live with people. Singular singleness, as opposed to singleness with roommates, allows for an ossification of selfishness -- not in an evil kind of way, but more as the nature of the situation. As Hugh Grant says in About a Boy, "I'm not putting myself first -- there is no one else, it's just me."
As things now stand, and have stood, I don't have to consult anyone at any time for any reason. I don't have to arrange my schedule to accommodate someone else's; I don't have to take anyone's preferences into account when I listen to music or watch TV (at whatever volume I like), I can cook anything I want for dinner, I can stay up as late, or go to bed as early, as I please. I don't have to share space or possessions. Everything is mine. The freedom is certainly delicious, and I will miss it terribly; at the same time, I know I will grow in ways I couldn't if I lived alone indefinitely.
Simultaneously I have no intentions of remaining in my parents' house longer than necessary. That's not desirable for anyone. This move is to help me save money and pay off my debt; and when the next thing comes along, or when I pursue the next thing, whichever comes first (I have plans in the works, oh yes, precious), I am once again hurtling out of the nest with wings unfurled.
And it's not going to be bad. I like my folks, and I like their pets, and Simon will adjust once again (though I'm a little nervous of how he and my parents' new puppy are going to react upon introduction. She's intensely curious and he's intensely anti-dog), and I'll at least be able to sleep in my very own big grown-up bed. Mom and Dad and I are going to sit down and talk about space arrangements, and where I can keep necessities like my kitchen implements without them being horribly in the way, and all the logistics of a minor household expansion.
At least I'll have unlimited internet access for the first time in eighteen months! That's a HUGE bonus.
Friday, April 03, 2009
farewell to Greubie
In other, sadder news, my parents are putting down the family cat this afternoon. He's old and sick and getting senile, and he has earned the dignity of his rest.
A good tribute to him is due; he has been a fantastic cat. For now, though, I'm trying to put it out of my mind, because I have to work tonight, and the day is long, and I don't feel like spending it crying.
Alexander Pennington Farnsworthy. Kitty with a Thousand Nicknames. Bat-Killer. MacGreuber. Bear-boy. Parr. Keety.
I'll miss you.
A good tribute to him is due; he has been a fantastic cat. For now, though, I'm trying to put it out of my mind, because I have to work tonight, and the day is long, and I don't feel like spending it crying.
Alexander Pennington Farnsworthy. Kitty with a Thousand Nicknames. Bat-Killer. MacGreuber. Bear-boy. Parr. Keety.
I'll miss you.
Out of Egypt, Into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I Shake the Dirt from My Sandals as I Run
I’m tired of being cryptic. The past forty-eight hours have been amazing. A little hedging remains necessary, but the bulk of what’s going on I can freely tell.
I. Sufjan is the Glue
I haven’t been myself for a couple of months. The change happened so gradually I pretended not to notice, but the past few weeks have seen me mired down in another round of depression, and, having read somewhere to use that as a marker for a wrongness in life circumstances, I began to sort and sift reasons, restlessly, subconsciously. I still felt like shit, but underneath my consciousness of my misery – and my disgust at being here yet again, come ON already – things were processing.
The shoot of green bursting from the bulb happened on Wednesday. For many, many months I haven’t felt like listening to Sufjan; my moods and tastes tended much more toward Conor and Josh Ritter. But Wednesday I popped Ray LaMontagne’s Till the Sun Turns Black into my computer at work, and started listening. I found myself almost immobile with this existential anguish, and laughed a little at myself: Ray’s is a GREAT album for wallowing, so no wonder I felt horrible. Tired of it, I turned to blind instinct and replaced Ray with Sufjan’s Illinoise.
I should have known. Leigh Ann and I always say that Sufjan is the glue. Part of the healing in listening to him is the brilliance of the music – Illinoise in particular engages in polyphonic melodies so carefully constructed that they sound wild, a great clash of different sound energies colliding head-on like high speed trains or jets of superpowered water and then surging skyward as a huge and magnificent One. It’s complex, intricate, dazzling brain music. Parts of my mind that I had gradually shut down since the start of the New Year couldn’t help but open back up, stretch, and breathe.
The rest of the healing comes from Sufjan’s great, throbbing faith that underwrites and permeates every aspect of sound and word. It wrapped itself around my mind. It restored my soul.
So by the time the album had played through I felt volumes better, reanchored in myself.
And that was the beginning.
II. Remember Who You Are
Remember that command, intoned so magnificently by Mufasa in The Lion King? (I don’t care who laughs. I love that movie. I had it entirely memorized from opening to closing credits in seventh grade.) Every once in awhile, when I find myself hiding bits of me from the rest of the world, that command reverberates in my skull.
After the restorative session with Illinoise, I changed out of my office clothes into jeans and cutely layered T-shirts and headed to work at the bookstore. Nothing bothered me that night – I cheerfully cleaned up the whole store and assisted difficult customers with an unruffled professionalism that had them thanking me.
And then a young man approached me and apologetically asked for help finding a book on St. Paul. In the process of locating it, I joked around with him and discovered that he’s a fan of C. S. Lewis. Immediately I seized on that and asked if he’d ever read Till We Have Faces. He had not. I expounded upon its virtues, gesticulating in excitement, and sketched a few details of my undergrad thesis in which I examined that book. He picked up on “psycholinguistics” and brought up Derrida. I almost jumped up and down.
“I LOVE Derrida!” I said.
His whole face opened wide. “You know who he is?”
“Are you kidding? I cried when he died!”
So we swapped favorite points of Derrida’s theories. He declared me one of the five coolest girls he’s ever met in his life and said we should get together sometime to talk literature and theology. I scribbled down my number and handed it to him, and he walked off to purchase the book he came in for, with Till We Have Faces balanced on top.
For the rest of the night I walked around on a brain high. I didn’t, and don’t, particularly care whether he calls me or not; the point of the whole experience was the experience itself. I connected with someone on a supernerd level, and I have missed that terribly these past few months. That missingness has contributed to the bogdown as well.
So, oddly, that conversation changed everything. Things that looked murky now look crystalline. None of my circumstances changed; I changed. I underwent a sudden re-vision, my eyes can see, I know what I want and who I am, and now I can change my circumstances. Maybe I don’t know precisely where I’ll wind up, but I do know where I’m going – I’ve been taken by the shoulders and turned in the direction I should go, and I don’t know what’s coming to me in the future, it’s all a huge question mark, but for the first time in years that brings, not dread or feelings of being trapped or hopeless or directionless or confused, but a thrill of unimagined miracles infusing what I always thought was ordinary.
And above it all, the words ring:
I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
Like the faith of Abraham lauded in Fear and Trembling, the certain knowledge that promises will come to their fruition in my lifetime fills me with joy. Someday these most cherished dreams of mine will come to pass, and the ones for which I am responsible I can begin to attend, knowing that these will bring me the fulfillment I’ve been looking for, and at an acceptable time the rest will come, too. And in that work to be done, in that resurgence of faith and hope, in the strength of renewed purpose rooted in divine love, I am free to shake off everything that holds me back, and look far into the distance, and run to meet what's coming.
I. Sufjan is the Glue
I haven’t been myself for a couple of months. The change happened so gradually I pretended not to notice, but the past few weeks have seen me mired down in another round of depression, and, having read somewhere to use that as a marker for a wrongness in life circumstances, I began to sort and sift reasons, restlessly, subconsciously. I still felt like shit, but underneath my consciousness of my misery – and my disgust at being here yet again, come ON already – things were processing.
The shoot of green bursting from the bulb happened on Wednesday. For many, many months I haven’t felt like listening to Sufjan; my moods and tastes tended much more toward Conor and Josh Ritter. But Wednesday I popped Ray LaMontagne’s Till the Sun Turns Black into my computer at work, and started listening. I found myself almost immobile with this existential anguish, and laughed a little at myself: Ray’s is a GREAT album for wallowing, so no wonder I felt horrible. Tired of it, I turned to blind instinct and replaced Ray with Sufjan’s Illinoise.
I should have known. Leigh Ann and I always say that Sufjan is the glue. Part of the healing in listening to him is the brilliance of the music – Illinoise in particular engages in polyphonic melodies so carefully constructed that they sound wild, a great clash of different sound energies colliding head-on like high speed trains or jets of superpowered water and then surging skyward as a huge and magnificent One. It’s complex, intricate, dazzling brain music. Parts of my mind that I had gradually shut down since the start of the New Year couldn’t help but open back up, stretch, and breathe.
The rest of the healing comes from Sufjan’s great, throbbing faith that underwrites and permeates every aspect of sound and word. It wrapped itself around my mind. It restored my soul.
So by the time the album had played through I felt volumes better, reanchored in myself.
And that was the beginning.
II. Remember Who You Are
Remember that command, intoned so magnificently by Mufasa in The Lion King? (I don’t care who laughs. I love that movie. I had it entirely memorized from opening to closing credits in seventh grade.) Every once in awhile, when I find myself hiding bits of me from the rest of the world, that command reverberates in my skull.
After the restorative session with Illinoise, I changed out of my office clothes into jeans and cutely layered T-shirts and headed to work at the bookstore. Nothing bothered me that night – I cheerfully cleaned up the whole store and assisted difficult customers with an unruffled professionalism that had them thanking me.
And then a young man approached me and apologetically asked for help finding a book on St. Paul. In the process of locating it, I joked around with him and discovered that he’s a fan of C. S. Lewis. Immediately I seized on that and asked if he’d ever read Till We Have Faces. He had not. I expounded upon its virtues, gesticulating in excitement, and sketched a few details of my undergrad thesis in which I examined that book. He picked up on “psycholinguistics” and brought up Derrida. I almost jumped up and down.
“I LOVE Derrida!” I said.
His whole face opened wide. “You know who he is?”
“Are you kidding? I cried when he died!”
So we swapped favorite points of Derrida’s theories. He declared me one of the five coolest girls he’s ever met in his life and said we should get together sometime to talk literature and theology. I scribbled down my number and handed it to him, and he walked off to purchase the book he came in for, with Till We Have Faces balanced on top.
For the rest of the night I walked around on a brain high. I didn’t, and don’t, particularly care whether he calls me or not; the point of the whole experience was the experience itself. I connected with someone on a supernerd level, and I have missed that terribly these past few months. That missingness has contributed to the bogdown as well.
So, oddly, that conversation changed everything. Things that looked murky now look crystalline. None of my circumstances changed; I changed. I underwent a sudden re-vision, my eyes can see, I know what I want and who I am, and now I can change my circumstances. Maybe I don’t know precisely where I’ll wind up, but I do know where I’m going – I’ve been taken by the shoulders and turned in the direction I should go, and I don’t know what’s coming to me in the future, it’s all a huge question mark, but for the first time in years that brings, not dread or feelings of being trapped or hopeless or directionless or confused, but a thrill of unimagined miracles infusing what I always thought was ordinary.
And above it all, the words ring:
I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
Like the faith of Abraham lauded in Fear and Trembling, the certain knowledge that promises will come to their fruition in my lifetime fills me with joy. Someday these most cherished dreams of mine will come to pass, and the ones for which I am responsible I can begin to attend, knowing that these will bring me the fulfillment I’ve been looking for, and at an acceptable time the rest will come, too. And in that work to be done, in that resurgence of faith and hope, in the strength of renewed purpose rooted in divine love, I am free to shake off everything that holds me back, and look far into the distance, and run to meet what's coming.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
all things new
The past twenty-four hours have seen me undergoing one of those periodical revisions of personhood.
Or perhaps a more accurate noun is refinement. Less like the burning away of dross than the peeling away of dragonskin, the painful process of being stripped of long buildups that I as the wearer came mistakenly to identify as part of myself.
In college and for the first few years afterward I had a fairly widespread reputation among my peers as a blunt axe. I called it like I saw it. I minced no words, beat around no bushes, bared many bones. A certain softening seems to be summoned by gradual maturation, but I realized today that I haven't softened as much as I've retreated. Through various circumstances and for various reasons I learned to stop speaking my mind, to let others lead, to allow my relationships with others to be determined almost entirely by them instead of in mutuality.
Which is ridiculous. I've hated it, and it's made me moody, doormatty, and then, when I can't stand it anymore, ferociously bitchy.
Last night I finally engaged in some direct communication, matter-of-fact and straightforward, and it felt so good I actually slept last night, and woke up in a fabulous mood which has lasted the entirety of the day. (My new bosses and coworkers must think I'm nuts. The stripping of the dragonskin was painful and I was listless and dull and sunken in on myself all week, like a hollow girl, and then all of a sudden today I was brisk and bouncy and inclined to sing along to Sufjan whom I played on my computer without caring whether or not other people thought he was weird, and was generally extremely productive and inquisitive.) I feel like I've gotten myself back.
So it's time I think to practice this a little more. I'm really, really liking it.
Or perhaps a more accurate noun is refinement. Less like the burning away of dross than the peeling away of dragonskin, the painful process of being stripped of long buildups that I as the wearer came mistakenly to identify as part of myself.
In college and for the first few years afterward I had a fairly widespread reputation among my peers as a blunt axe. I called it like I saw it. I minced no words, beat around no bushes, bared many bones. A certain softening seems to be summoned by gradual maturation, but I realized today that I haven't softened as much as I've retreated. Through various circumstances and for various reasons I learned to stop speaking my mind, to let others lead, to allow my relationships with others to be determined almost entirely by them instead of in mutuality.
Which is ridiculous. I've hated it, and it's made me moody, doormatty, and then, when I can't stand it anymore, ferociously bitchy.
Last night I finally engaged in some direct communication, matter-of-fact and straightforward, and it felt so good I actually slept last night, and woke up in a fabulous mood which has lasted the entirety of the day. (My new bosses and coworkers must think I'm nuts. The stripping of the dragonskin was painful and I was listless and dull and sunken in on myself all week, like a hollow girl, and then all of a sudden today I was brisk and bouncy and inclined to sing along to Sufjan whom I played on my computer without caring whether or not other people thought he was weird, and was generally extremely productive and inquisitive.) I feel like I've gotten myself back.
So it's time I think to practice this a little more. I'm really, really liking it.
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