Goodbye, Selections

... hello, Little Stories.

While it has been fun blogging here for a few years, things have changed and I'm moving to a newer, fresher location:

abbyfp.wordpress.com

If you like, continue to follow me here! I probably won't be posting for more than a week or so, as I imagine the move to Charlottesville and the beginning of my new job will be more than a bit time consuming. But I'm looking forward to writing again.

With much love and joy,

The newly minted Mrs. P.

going to get married

Well, friends, it's about that time. Tomorrow morning at 7, my mom, sisters and I are packing up and headed out for Chapel Hill. I'm getting married on Saturday and it's totally crazy and exciting! I feel like my brain is already splintering into a thousand pieces when I think about all that needs to be done. But strangely, and mercifully, I also feel very peaceful and content. I just have to breathe every now and then. Things will go wrong (like the expected rain on Saturday, and other things I simply can't predict), but at the end of the day, I get to marry Guion. And that's all that really matters.
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This morning, I read this verse, which charmed and calmed my heart. It's a passage that talks about God's presence among the Israelites as they wandered in despair:
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"Your way was through the sea,
your path through the great waters;
yet your footprints were unseen."

(Psalm 77:19)
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It communicates to me this beautiful idea of God's omnipresence. Even when we fail to detect him, he's there, treading the same ground. This is something I will strive to remember this weekend, and, hopefully, always.
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This blog, my Flickr, and any other Internet presence I may have will understandably be on hold for a week or more. I have to get hitched, honeymoon, move to Charlottesville, and start my new job in a mere two weeks!
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Thanks for the encouragement, support, and mutual excitement that's come from all of you out there. I shall return, a happily married woman!

ten days left

Back from the bachelorette retreat at Topsail! We had such a perfect time. I love these beautiful women so, so much and my life is infinitely richer because of them.
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We're now in the 10-day countdown! It's a bit unbelievable to me still. As soon as I got back, I checked the weather forecast. It looks to be much of what I expected for a typical May day: hot, humid, and the possibility of transient thunderstorms. I hope they will hold off so we can take photos in the Arboretum...
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Will try to write again soon. Much love!

the memorable weekend

This weekend, I said goodbye to my six fabulous and graduated housemates...

Remembered four amazing years with dear friends...

Celebrated with family...

And (most likely) found a place to live with my husband-to-be! (If all goes according to plan, we'll have the upstairs apartment in this charming, historic home near downtown Charlottesville and the Belmont neighborhood. Old doors, transom windows, and heart-of-pine floors = I'm thrilled.

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There is so much going on in my life right now and I am thankful to be home for a few weeks so I can sit still and think about it all. I graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill and I'm getting married in 18 days; I feel like I should do something else momentous to keep the ball rolling... like become a first-time owner of an angora rabbit (today's obsession, for whatever reason).

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All I want to do is lounge in the sun and read. But there are veils to be refashioned and plates to be counted and mason jars to be ribboned! Much, much still to be done. Love to you all, my largely anonymous body of readers!

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You care for the land and water it;

you enrich it abundantly.

The streams of God are filled with water

to provide people with grain,

for so you have ordained it.

Psalm 65.9

words words words

Sorry if the last post sounded mean or ungrateful. I know it's no excuse, but I've been really stressed this week.

In better news,
I've almost graduated
My truly FINAL exam is tomorrow at 4
I'm reading Pale Fire and it's reminded me of why I love Nabokov
It's been great being home and I'm looking forward to my time here in May
Guion and I have some decent prospects for housing
We're getting married in 25 days!

Warmly,
A.

i'll be so good to you

Annie Clark (St. Vincent). She looks like my beautiful mother, doesn't she?

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Mercy! Done with classes. Two final exams and then I'm really done with academic work for my undergraduate career. Graduation happens, and then I'll move home until we get married (which happens in a MONTH, for those who care). These have been swift, swift weeks.

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I got to see St. Vincent and The Love Language last night for free at Memorial Hall. Emily came with me and we adored Annie Clark (see above) from a not-too-far distance (we had third-row seats). I also got to see Angela almost get herself kicked out of the concert for being so happy and dance-y. She stole most of the show with her joyful antics and managed to drag Emily and I (and about twenty other people, including Sarah E., who I was pleased and surprised to see but not too surprised, because it's St. Vincent) back to dance with her.

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"She said, 'Why is my life so uneven?' ..."

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Today was my last day at UNC Press. They threw me a mini food party and my eyes misted up. I am sad to leave these people. They have been such excellent coworkers and endlessly encouraging and patient. I would work here again one day if I could. If we ever return to Chapel Hill...

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Things I'm excited about doing in Charlottesville:

- Getting to know all of the great shops and restaurants in the Downtown Mall

- Reading The Hook weekly

- Going to the Charlottesville City Market

- Having a full-time job and being an Adult

- Hiking in Shenandoah National Park!

- Making friends with our neighbors

- Becoming a part of a local church

the recognition of things

This is my last week of classes as an undergraduate. Somehow, I never imagined getting here. When I arrived on campus as a bright-eyed first-year, I never pictured reaching The End. College was supposed to last forever! And now here it is: The End. It seems like a very morbid way to think about it, but I'm excited about what lies ahead. I talked with Danielle about it last night, and we both agreed on this general feeling of readiness. At the same time, I feel unusually possessed of the awareness of time, of the need to be very present this week.

"He thought that in the world it had always been and always was like this: a bearded man lies in a room on a bed. The boy had just entered into the recognition of things. He still did not know how to distinguish their different existences in time." -- Yuri Olesha, "Liompa"

I will miss riding my bike around campus. I hope I can still bike places in Charlottesville.

Annie Dillard wrote in Living By Fiction that language is like shining a light on Venus. She didn't really explain what she meant by that, but I will keep thinking about it.

I started a personal study of Jude for the next few weeks. It's a very dark little letter. But I like his opening greeting, which expresses this hope: "May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you" (Jude 2, ESV). I like this expression of these virtues (spiritual gifts, perhaps) as finite things that may be increased many times over.

Still anxious about jobs and a place to live. But I'm getting married to the best man I've ever met in 32 days, so I don't really have much to worry about.

preliminary marriage goals

Things I want to do after I get married:

- Start reading for pleasure again
- Begin a little garden
- Become more experimental in the kitchen
- Be really savvy with money
- Use the public library so much that I get to be on a first-name basis with the librarians
- Volunteer: after-school program or animal shelter
- Yoga once a week with husband
- Start writing again
- Write letters to friends
- Keep lots of plants in the house
- Try painting again (something should happen with that gouache)
- Run
- Pray with my husband every morning
- Become a better blogger
- Get plugged in with a great local church
- Develop a calligraphy service on the side
- Keep a clean, simple house
- Hike the Appalachian Trail, all the time
- Memorize scripture
- Go on mini-adventures with Guion on the weekends
- Explore Charlottesville
- GET A DOG
- Did I mention I'm going to start reading again?

bluebells are ringing

(The long, strong arm of the tree outside the Shoebox.)

I persuaded my Russian lit professor to let me write my final paper as a short story instead. I'm writing a response to Chekhov's "The Lady with the Little Dog," creating a narrative from the perspective of the main character's jilted wife. It's been a great exercise, but it's also made me realize how rusty my fiction skills are. I may need to enlist some savvy editors to help me whip this funky little piece into shape.

I had two vivid dreams last night: one inspired by No Pants April and the other by reading too many wedding blogs. In the first, I dreamed I went home and was rummaging through my small, small corner of our giant closet (Property of A.G.F.) and was astonished and delighted to find 10 brand new, beautiful dresses. They were colorful and flowing and I couldn't wait to take them back with me to continue this month's challenge. In the second, Mom and I were walking in a field with Mrs. Edwards (where she came from and why, I don't know) as she showed us her set-up for a backyard wedding she was planning (for Sarah, perhaps, I don't know). She had hung a giant red birdcage from an oak tree and over the hill was an enormous field of bluebells. We laid down among the flowers and then Mrs. Edwards told us that we had to go corral a sow.

Guion and I are very, very blessed to be surrounded by such a great cloud of family and friends. I realize this more and more every day.

About 100 pages left in Ulysses. I've got to read something fun and easy next. Proust shall be postponed until the middle of the summer.

serenaded hourly

Jesus' practical question was a relevant one last night:

For who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?

I'm so happy we're going to Charlottesville. I'm also so worried about finding a job. Jesus says he feeds ravens and clothes lilies, though. This ought to be enough.

Emily wrote an excellent thesis. I was privileged enough to get to read it last night after I had edited my own and I was so impressed. Clamor for "Backstitch" to be published; it would improve us all greatly.

No Pants April was a great idea, if I may say so.

I have much to do this week. I feel frightened and somehow caged when I consider that I do not have a single free weekend between now and getting married. Things will slow down, won't they? They have to. It is simply inhumane to live at such breakneck speeds. Proulx would denounce it; Woolf would use it as fodder and then call it spiritually destructive. Only McCarthy would laugh.

Somehow this was touching to me on Sunday night, as Kelsey and I drove back to Chapel Hill. I was thinking about the microcosm of Carolina and how I am quietly sad to leave it:

Well, just look around.
It's why I love this town:
just see me serenaded hourly! celebrated sourly!
dedicated dourly; waltzing with the open sea -
clam, crab, cockle, cowrie : will you just look at me?

- "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie," Joanna Newsom

just kidding

Nope, this isn't an April Fool's joke... we're actually going to Charlottesville! It's been a really crazy weekend, but God provided the unexpected with the University of Virginia. I'm really, really excited. And now I really, really have to do some homework, but I promise to write more soon.

Also, to all of my lady friends who are joining me in No Pants April: Happy inauguration day. Don't your legs feel free and gorgeous?

and all day long we talked about mercy

Uplifting things in my small world:

- The pure magic of seeing Joanna Newsom live. There's something about her that I want: that merriment.

- Reading Chekhov for class. He might be my second favorite writer of all time. Like Woolf, he believes fiercely that there is no such thing as a minor character. Unlike Woolf, he has never passed a word of judgment on any character: he simply presents them to you with open hands. "Here are these people I have seen; do what you will with them."

- Prospect of dinner at Sage tonight with Guion for my birthday.

- Prospect of seeing "Uncle Vanya" at Memorial Hall on Wednesday night.

- Marriage counseling and reading and praying together.

- I am giving up pants for the month of April. (Grace, you must join me!) I have recruited a number of other women (Courtney, Danielle, Emily, Kathryn, maybe Amy and Sarah) to join in this endeavor. You must wear skirts and dresses for a month. (The only exception is if you're working out; then you are allowed to wear pants.) I think it will be an excellent challenge in thinking about how to wear the things that we already own with creativity.

- I marry Guion in 63 days!

- Eating grapefruit fastidiously.

- Outrageously loud birds.

- Committing to reading two nonfiction books per month. Currently: "The Arabs," by Eugene Rogan. An exhaustive and helpful history.

- Jonathan, crying over poetry.

- My orchid is still alive.

- Tallahassee is very warm.

- Chekhov once said that a writer's job is not to give the right answers to questions, but to pose questions in the right way.

here we come, florida

We're moving to Tallahassee! Guion will be attending grad school at Florida State to acquire an MFA in poetry and I will be looking desperately for jobs! If you have any contacts here, or have visited and have any tips about good places to live and work, we'd be eager to hear from you. I'm excited! If all goes according to plan right now, we'll be aiming to move down here in August, after spending a summer living cheaply and finishing up our jobs in the Davidson-Salisbury area. While it was a difficult choice to make at some points, I think I'm definitely going to enjoy winters in Tallahassee more than I would in Boston or Manhattan...

springing

Five things that I could talk about all day:
1. My family (parents, siblings, Guion, Pratts)
2. Literature
3. Food justice
4. Dogs
5. Where Jesus intersects the mundane

First really warm day of spring! I dropped off my thesis, had lunch with Guion on the wall outside Peabody, and am now sitting on the front porch with Sarah and Amy. We like to sporadically shout at people we know. Or don't know--in Sarah's case.

I went running on Wednesday morning and my body has punished me by giving me shin splints. Dad, what am I supposed to do to get them to go away?

Since I finished my thesis, I decided to start another literary challenge: Ulysses. Rather like writing all that nonsense about Woolf, it's one of those projects that has its bright moments, but may or may not be worth all of the blood, sweat, and stream-of-consciousness tears.

helene cooper

After she finished speaking, I went up to her and said, "In my four years at Carolina, you're the most incredible guest speaker I've ever heard." I wasn't exaggerating. Helene Cooper spoke to my Diversity and Communication class today and I was blown away by her. She is the current White House correspondent for the New York Times and author of The House at Sugar Beach. Her graciousness, humility, and intelligence was so inspiring. Cooper, who was born in Monrovia, Liberia, immigrated with her family to the United States as civil war was intensifying. She enrolled briefly at UNC-Chapel Hill, and then went on to a career as a business reporter for the Wall Street Journal, later moving London to cover the transition to the euro, and finally ending up as a foreign correspondent. She spent a few months embedded with troops in Iraq in 2003 before returning to her homeland to write her memoir.

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Cooper’s life story seems proof of the mythical American dream–that fabled ascent to success told and retold in the well of common history. Yet Cooper’s story is not predictable or purely suburban idealism: she seems to have infused her energy and keen perception of the world into every part of her life. She is proof that women–and, more specifically, women of color–can and will succeed in a male-dominated profession. She is proof that a bachelor’s degree isn’t your only ticket to career success. She is proof, in my mind, that journalism still has heart. I’m planning on reading her memoir soon. I look forward to getting further acquainted with this incredible woman.

synapses

"I love her because she makes things with her hands. It's as if her synapses were connected directly to her fingers." (Stephane, "The Science of Sleep")

I finished my thesis today. Staring at that stack of paper, I simultaneously feel an enormous sense of accomplishment and doubt if it was all worth it.

what belongs to what

"I make it a real thing by putting it into words. It is only by putting it into words that I make it whole; this wholeness means that it has lost its power to hurt me; it gives me, perhaps because by doing so I take away the pain, a great delight to put the severed parts together. Perhaps this is the strongest pleasure known to me. It is the rapture I get when in writing I seem to be discovering what belongs to what; making a scene come right; making a character come together. From this I reach what I might call a philosophy; at any rate it is a constant idea of mine; that behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we—I mean all human beings—are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art."

VW, A Sketch of the Past

aspens

Today I want to go back here. Yesterday in Russian class, we read the Turgenev story "Meeting." He complains about aspen trees, how they are always babbling, noisy. Reading that line brought me back to this place, Elks Meadow State Park, where I went hiking alone at the end of my summer in Colorado. I had never been hiking solo before and it was a clarifying and uplifting experience. I'd never encountered aspens before--only birch trees--and I fell in love with them. But Turgenev was right about their noisiness. When the wind blows, it plays through the leaves of the aspens, causing them to sound exactly like rushing water. I found it deceptively beautiful; when I first heard them, I kept looking around for the source of the water. Was it a creek over that hill? A waterfall beyond the forest? No, only this little grove of trees, calling out.

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Angela recently posted an interview she conducted with me about one of my personal heroes, Woolf. In the interview, I try to explain why I love her as I do.
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Spring break starts today! I'll be headed to Southern Pines for this first weekend and then home for the duration of the break--aiming to finish my thesis and make an assortment of wedding-related decisions. I can't wait to go home.

i dream of farmland

During our marriage workshop day at the Chapel of the Cross, Guion and I were asked to make short- and long-term goals for our lives together. The short-term goals came rather easily, although they tended to be more vague (write, keep stable jobs, survive). As we considered the question of where we wanted to be in 10 years, we looked at each other for a moment, and then said, at the same time, "On a FARM!" Yes, we want to be farmers. Yes, we are drawn to all of the beautiful things that make absolutely no money (poetry, publishing, farming, music, animals).

I was daydreaming about it this morning in class. I want to live in a home that looks like the seamless combination of these gorgeous rooms. I want to have acres of green fields and forests at my disposal. I want a pack of dogs, a few chickens, a pair of bunnies, one tolerable cat, and a Jersey cow. I want our children to be low-maintenance wild things that run around outdoors all day and help me garden and feed the goats.

It's a dream that I inherited from my parents. We bought six acres way out in Iron Station, but never got around to developing it and building a house there. We are happy on our busy little street in Davidson and I don't think we'll ever move, but you can still tell that Mom and Dad haven't let the dream die. Mom's prodigious, tiered side garden attracts the envy of most of our neighbors. Dad's favorite pastime is escaping to the woods behind the College with a few Frisbees and Dublin, the next-door Lab. I think it's an interesting phenomenon, this reception of a life goal from one's parents. I hope it will become a reality. One day. Ten years from now, look for me in the middle of nowhere. I'll be standing in a field in my Hunters with a pitchfork and a blue-eyed child.

stuff and nonsense

Have I told you how much I love our wedding photographer, Meredith? Because I do. She's not only amazing at what she does, but just about the sweetest person we've worked with amid all of this wedding madness. She's incredible and I can't wait to see her in May.

Speaking of our wedding, would it be criminal to forgo flowers? They're the only thing that's stressing me out right now. I love flowers. If I were rich, I would have vases of fresh ones in every room. But they're so unbelievably expensive and our little budget can't really handle them. That said, however, we've been receiving some wallet-friendly suggestions from people--and an extremely gracious offer of help from one of our dear neighbors. I think it will all come together. I'm just anxious about it. And I don't really have the energy to be anxious about anything right now.

News flash: The woman in the Honda with the border collie was in the exact SAME place again this morning, trying once more to pull off an extremely poorly planned ten-point turn! What is she doing? Why is her dog with her? The world is full of mystery.

Last night, as I was perusing the blogosphere while waiting for the ice skating to begin, I stumbled upon these gorgeous wedding photos by one of Charlotte's most respected wedding photographers. The bride is an old friend of a friend and although we have not spoken in years, I feel oddly compelled to tell her how remarkably beautiful she looked. For real. This girl is a knockout. And godly; a pre-req. for marrying into Crossway royalty, you know. But the photos are stunning. The picture of her and her dad kissing her head: gorgeous and sweet.

Snowed this morning. Fat, floppy snowflakes that flew sideways and refused to stick. This has been the longest winter ever and I am so eager to have it go. I miss wearing dresses.