This morning I was sitting on my bike in our driveway, about to take a spin around the block in the light rain, when I was nearly backed over by a maroon Cadillac. An elderly couple sat inside. The man rolled down the window, leaned out of it and sputtered desperately at me, "They said Caldwell runs parallel to this street, but that just ain't true! It ain't true! Where IS this Caldwell Street?" I had no idea where Caldwell was, having only lived here two years and even then only for a few months at a time. I asked them where they were trying to go and they said the Episcopal church. I was relieved because I knew where that was; I told them to turn left out of Thompson and then take the second right. With wide and grateful smiles they waved and drove off. As soon as they did, I realized I had given them bad directions. The Episcopal church is left out of Thompson and the first left. I hope they found it. I've been feeling terrible about this all day long.
Started packing for Tokyo today. My suitcase is half-full and I haven't even put any clothes in yet. Quite problematic.
Now that I have a pro Flickr account, I have an unlimited number of photos to upload, so I am taking advantage of that by uploading a set I am calling "the ones that got away." This set includes photos from throughout the year that didn't make the initial 366 list. I don't just take one photo a day; usually I take at least five or more, often dozens. Often it becomes very hard to choose the one I like the best, so I decided to pick all of my favorites that didn't get chosen and upload them. I'll post a new month every day or so before I leave.
Really enjoying the John O'Hara novel (Appointment in Samarra) that Dave lent me. O'Hara is like an edgier, more direct version of Fitzgerald. One of the things he does so pitch-perfectly-well is paint a verbal fight. The last sparring match between Julian English and his wife Caroline was so real, so believable; great stuff to read.
The fiery crash, it's just a formality before you get on a plane...
28 May, 2008
26 May, 2008
it tastes like being poor and small
Curious. It's a state I've never been in before: to have family and friends, everyone I care about the most, spread out across all corners of the world--and myself soon to follow suit. I'm accustomed to having accessible loved ones, and so it is strange--at least for this summer--to have them dispersed across the globe. Grace left for Peru on Sunday and is currently chilling there now with Elisabeth and Sarah; Guion flies to his beloved Ireland tomorrow afternoon; Rachel and Elizabeth are hiking in Alaska; Kelsey is preparing to do the same in Olympic National Park; Emily is in Egypt or almost there; J.Hecht will be across the sea from me in Korea; J.Clem and Chad are living out "The Motorcycle Diaries" in S. America (see their thorough blogs for proof), with Catherine to join them later; and I am beginning to create a packing list, for I am Tokyo bound in a week (June 5). My head feels dizzy and unfocused and my heart is uncertain and distracted.
I had a very anxious heart when I woke up this morning, thinking about all of these people that I love and how far away we are and how helpless I am. God's word brought some peace but I still need to pray for that all-surpassing peace more fervently, more devotedly. And perhaps it is a good state to be in, this helplessness. Keeps one spiritually flexible, I suppose.
I got information about my hosts, the Koyasu family, this morning. They live in Chiba prefecture (about an hour by train from my university) and seem very kind. To my delight, they have three young children: a son, Yutaro (age 12), and two daughters, Rina (6) and Nana (3). I am excited (and nervous!) about meeting them and hope I will be a easy and likable houseguest for two months. I am scared about communicating; I'm realizing more and more how shabby my Japanese is. But it's at least comforting to know that I can communicate with and understand Nana; we're at about the same language level, I'd guess... "Where is the bathroom? This is a red ball. My name is Abby. What is your favorite animal?"
I think I am going to keep this same blog while I am there, so keep checking here for updates. The photos will, of course, be on Flickr (and I'll be posting more than one a day, I'm sure).
I feel like my writing is very formal and dry right now. Don't know why but I don't like it.
One of the things I've been thinking about lately is how ample God's provisions are. I don't credit Him enough with all of the blessings I have been enveloped with these past few months. Everything with this summer in Japan has been so clearly orchestrated by His mercy and providence; how everything fell together, particularly financially, was nothing short of incredible. It is a prayer I hope will be circulating in my heart this summer: Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.
Currently
Reading: Appointment in Samarra, John O'Hara; A Haunted House and Other Stories, Virginia Woolf
Hearing: "Hand on Your Heart," Jose Gonzalez; "Dubuque," George Winston
Thinking: I may experience what it's like to be entirely broke this summer
I had a very anxious heart when I woke up this morning, thinking about all of these people that I love and how far away we are and how helpless I am. God's word brought some peace but I still need to pray for that all-surpassing peace more fervently, more devotedly. And perhaps it is a good state to be in, this helplessness. Keeps one spiritually flexible, I suppose.
I got information about my hosts, the Koyasu family, this morning. They live in Chiba prefecture (about an hour by train from my university) and seem very kind. To my delight, they have three young children: a son, Yutaro (age 12), and two daughters, Rina (6) and Nana (3). I am excited (and nervous!) about meeting them and hope I will be a easy and likable houseguest for two months. I am scared about communicating; I'm realizing more and more how shabby my Japanese is. But it's at least comforting to know that I can communicate with and understand Nana; we're at about the same language level, I'd guess... "Where is the bathroom? This is a red ball. My name is Abby. What is your favorite animal?"
I think I am going to keep this same blog while I am there, so keep checking here for updates. The photos will, of course, be on Flickr (and I'll be posting more than one a day, I'm sure).
I feel like my writing is very formal and dry right now. Don't know why but I don't like it.
One of the things I've been thinking about lately is how ample God's provisions are. I don't credit Him enough with all of the blessings I have been enveloped with these past few months. Everything with this summer in Japan has been so clearly orchestrated by His mercy and providence; how everything fell together, particularly financially, was nothing short of incredible. It is a prayer I hope will be circulating in my heart this summer: Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.
Currently
Reading: Appointment in Samarra, John O'Hara; A Haunted House and Other Stories, Virginia Woolf
Hearing: "Hand on Your Heart," Jose Gonzalez; "Dubuque," George Winston
Thinking: I may experience what it's like to be entirely broke this summer
15 May, 2008
guess who was reading Woolf today?
Riding the bus home from work.
The sky is feathered and folded, periwinkle or almost lavender, no sun in sight but you can sense it pulsing in places. My body is tired but my mind is alert, supple, and I am thinking of the lines of a face and why the poor make me feel uncomfortable. We rumble and whistle down the interstate and seem to be moving much faster than we are. The throbbing city pulls all of these little cars to its center on roads like veins. A black bird flies from the grass to a tree.
The clouds are white on blue and in some places blue on white. To be deep in thought and at peace. The hammer clicks in place. Anxiety sinks down at the end of the day and the rest of life is nothing but a pale canvas flecked with rain.
A woman waits at a bus stop with her jacket hanging on her head, threading the handle of her purse through her worried thumbs.
The sky is feathered and folded, periwinkle or almost lavender, no sun in sight but you can sense it pulsing in places. My body is tired but my mind is alert, supple, and I am thinking of the lines of a face and why the poor make me feel uncomfortable. We rumble and whistle down the interstate and seem to be moving much faster than we are. The throbbing city pulls all of these little cars to its center on roads like veins. A black bird flies from the grass to a tree.
The clouds are white on blue and in some places blue on white. To be deep in thought and at peace. The hammer clicks in place. Anxiety sinks down at the end of the day and the rest of life is nothing but a pale canvas flecked with rain.
A woman waits at a bus stop with her jacket hanging on her head, threading the handle of her purse through her worried thumbs.
12 May, 2008
such the conditions of our love
On the way back from the gym tonight, Vivaldi's "Spring" came on the classical radio station and we rolled the windows down and cranked the volume.
While I was running, I prayed for all of you who are going abroad this summer. For some reason, the thought that most of my dearest friends will be scattered all over the globe this summer has rejuvenated my desire for prayer. A good thing. Know that I will be praying for you this summer, wherever you happen to be. Let me know how I can pray more specifically; generalized petitions easily sound stale on my tongue.
Favorite song of the week: "Dirty Knife," Neko Case
This is why Woolf succeeds in making "characters that survive," the fact that she gets this:
"It seems that a profound, impartial, and absolutely just opinion of our fellow creatures is utterly unknown. Either we are men, or we are women. Either we are cold, or we are sentimental. Either we are young, or growing old. In any case life is but a procession of shadows, and God knows why it is that we embrace them so eagerly, and see them depart with such anguish, being shadows. And why, if this and much more than this is true, why are we yet surprised in the window corner by a sudden vision that the young man in the chair is of all things in the world the most real, the most solid, the best known to us--why indeed? For the moment after we know nothing about him. Such is the manner of our seeing. Such the conditions of our love."
The desire to shirk this method of seeing people--as being one thing or another, being so stubbornly black or white--is keen in me, re-reading this passage. (From Jacob's Room.)
"I can't believe we're sisters."--Kelsey, to Grace, upon observing the disaster in Grace's corner of our bedroom
Had three disturbingly vivid dreams last night: 1) I gave birth to two African babies in a mud hut on a dirt floor; 2) Emily E.S. had a baby girl named Sophia who was six months old; 3) I had my heart broken by my sister at a water park. And then I went back to school and all of the stairways in our dorm were blocked with piles of armchairs. I woke up startled and anxious, eager to awake in the neutral-colored morning and convince myself that reality was better. It was.
Geese are basically the only five-letter thing that fly in a flock.
While I was running, I prayed for all of you who are going abroad this summer. For some reason, the thought that most of my dearest friends will be scattered all over the globe this summer has rejuvenated my desire for prayer. A good thing. Know that I will be praying for you this summer, wherever you happen to be. Let me know how I can pray more specifically; generalized petitions easily sound stale on my tongue.
Favorite song of the week: "Dirty Knife," Neko Case
This is why Woolf succeeds in making "characters that survive," the fact that she gets this:
"It seems that a profound, impartial, and absolutely just opinion of our fellow creatures is utterly unknown. Either we are men, or we are women. Either we are cold, or we are sentimental. Either we are young, or growing old. In any case life is but a procession of shadows, and God knows why it is that we embrace them so eagerly, and see them depart with such anguish, being shadows. And why, if this and much more than this is true, why are we yet surprised in the window corner by a sudden vision that the young man in the chair is of all things in the world the most real, the most solid, the best known to us--why indeed? For the moment after we know nothing about him. Such is the manner of our seeing. Such the conditions of our love."
The desire to shirk this method of seeing people--as being one thing or another, being so stubbornly black or white--is keen in me, re-reading this passage. (From Jacob's Room.)
"I can't believe we're sisters."--Kelsey, to Grace, upon observing the disaster in Grace's corner of our bedroom
Had three disturbingly vivid dreams last night: 1) I gave birth to two African babies in a mud hut on a dirt floor; 2) Emily E.S. had a baby girl named Sophia who was six months old; 3) I had my heart broken by my sister at a water park. And then I went back to school and all of the stairways in our dorm were blocked with piles of armchairs. I woke up startled and anxious, eager to awake in the neutral-colored morning and convince myself that reality was better. It was.
Geese are basically the only five-letter thing that fly in a flock.
07 May, 2008
an internal vibration
It is deeply satisfying to be back home. Free from classes, homework, Lenoir. This town is just blooming and my family is happy and crazy. It is good to be around them again, to be reacquainted with our insane and hyperactive style of living (even if I am often slow to adjust).
I am sitting on the floor in our bedroom, helping Kelsey compile her song list for her graduation. (A trio of Kelsey-esque choices: George Winston, Sandra McCracken, and Tom Petty.) Sam is rubbing his grody feet on me as I type. We are listening to Bob Seger and Grace is brushing her teeth, getting ready to go to lit. class. Mom is addressing envelopes and making smoothies. Dad is in the treehouse office, pretending to work. Feet up and down the stairs, crunching bags, the ticking ceiling fan. Sounds of a home.
Cleaning the kitchen is a rich and fulfilling activity. I woke up yesterday morning at 9:30 and cleaned for an hour, listening to Arcade Fire and Jose Gonzalez, feeling excessively accomplished. I like doing tasks with immediate and noticeable results. Afterwards, Dad and I biked to the public library and bought 30 books for a mere $16. I came back and spread a white sheet out on the grass and read Proust, Woolf, and Fodor's travel guide to Japan and wrote a haphazard entry in my journal. The sun passed in spotted patterns over the lawn and I was at peace.
"For even if we have the sensation of being always surrounded by our own soul, it is not as though by a motionless prison: rather, we are in some sense borne along with it in a perpetual leap to go beyond it, to reach the outside, with a sort of discouragement as we hear around us always that same resonance, which is not an echo from outside but the resounding of an internal vibration." -- Proust
Watched "Lars and the Real Girl" last night with the family; probably the best film I've seen in a long time.
(My style of writing changes when I come back home. Family activity and movement takes priority over ideas.)
God is gracious to us in our weakness. Light is shed upon the righteous and joy on the upright at heart.
Currently
Reading: Swann's Way, Marcel Proust; Jacob's Room, Virginia Woolf; Fodor's guide to Japan
Hearing: "Duettino - Sull 'Aria'" from "The Marriage of Figaro"
Eating: A blackberry smoothie, courtesy of my mother
Thinking: Once upon a time I could write better things
I am sitting on the floor in our bedroom, helping Kelsey compile her song list for her graduation. (A trio of Kelsey-esque choices: George Winston, Sandra McCracken, and Tom Petty.) Sam is rubbing his grody feet on me as I type. We are listening to Bob Seger and Grace is brushing her teeth, getting ready to go to lit. class. Mom is addressing envelopes and making smoothies. Dad is in the treehouse office, pretending to work. Feet up and down the stairs, crunching bags, the ticking ceiling fan. Sounds of a home.
Cleaning the kitchen is a rich and fulfilling activity. I woke up yesterday morning at 9:30 and cleaned for an hour, listening to Arcade Fire and Jose Gonzalez, feeling excessively accomplished. I like doing tasks with immediate and noticeable results. Afterwards, Dad and I biked to the public library and bought 30 books for a mere $16. I came back and spread a white sheet out on the grass and read Proust, Woolf, and Fodor's travel guide to Japan and wrote a haphazard entry in my journal. The sun passed in spotted patterns over the lawn and I was at peace.
"For even if we have the sensation of being always surrounded by our own soul, it is not as though by a motionless prison: rather, we are in some sense borne along with it in a perpetual leap to go beyond it, to reach the outside, with a sort of discouragement as we hear around us always that same resonance, which is not an echo from outside but the resounding of an internal vibration." -- Proust
Watched "Lars and the Real Girl" last night with the family; probably the best film I've seen in a long time.
(My style of writing changes when I come back home. Family activity and movement takes priority over ideas.)
God is gracious to us in our weakness. Light is shed upon the righteous and joy on the upright at heart.
Currently
Reading: Swann's Way, Marcel Proust; Jacob's Room, Virginia Woolf; Fodor's guide to Japan
Hearing: "Duettino - Sull 'Aria'" from "The Marriage of Figaro"
Eating: A blackberry smoothie, courtesy of my mother
Thinking: Once upon a time I could write better things
29 April, 2008
a clanging cymbal
As children, we had to memorize 1 Corinthians 13 and I’m sure I’ve heard it repeated a hundred times since then, but this week it blew me away, as if I was reading it for the first time. I am astounded with so many different aspects of this chapter, but the last few days I’ve been especially fascinated with the idea of love being patient. (It is such a crushingly beautiful word, isn’t it?)
Patience seems like such an arbitrary quality to ascribe to love, of all the virtues to choose from. Loyalty or trust or gentleness seem like more apparent first choices. But patience starts off the list — patience is where Paul starts.
The more I consider it, the more I think perhaps this was proper, that maybe patience starts the list because patience is where everything else starts as well. If we do not have patience with one another — patience for one another’s sheer humanness — then no love can be exchanged at all. I must be patient with you so I can love you. And you must be patient with me before you can begin to love me at all.
In concert with these musings, God has been laying down these very tangible chances for me to exercise love as patience. It’s so hard and I wish He wouldn’t. Trying to keep back the barbed words of disdain that are just itching to spring from my tongue, trying to act with generous kindness instead of anxiety or self-promotion… when, really, I’d just rather act without any consideration of others, without any reservations about whether or not I’m being patient. But I don’t want to live that way anymore.
Last Thursday I was lying in the grass with Betsey and Emily and we were talking about the fruits of the spirit and which fruits we especially wanted to exemplify. (I think the two of them are already exceedingly fruitful and so it was difficult to imagine them lacking anything. Really.) As we talked, I realized that I would really love to be known as a gentle and patient woman. Those are such lovely characteristics, such beautiful virtues that I do not naturally possess. A quiet spirit. To be continually wrapped in peace and existing in peace. Soothed.
I feel peaceful now: my hardest exams are over and I don’t have another one until Monday. This afternoon I’ve had the time to do the things I love to do but don’t get to during the semester: like play guitar, solve the New York Times crossword puzzle, actually read The New York Times, lie in my bed and do nothing but listen to music, read smatterings of novels, even try writing.
In a bizarre burst of inspiration, I took up rewriting my feeble short story that has been a long time coming. I started it in June and rediscovered it this afternoon and thought, I need to just DO this and finish it, regardless of how awful it will inevitably be; the mere act of finishing will be an accomplishment and even if I never write another one again, I can at least say I’ve tried.
Currently
Reading: The New York Times Book Review, Cry, the Beloved Country
Hearing: “Simple X” by Andrew Bird and “Stay” by Alison Krauss
Thinking: but where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled…
Patience seems like such an arbitrary quality to ascribe to love, of all the virtues to choose from. Loyalty or trust or gentleness seem like more apparent first choices. But patience starts off the list — patience is where Paul starts.
The more I consider it, the more I think perhaps this was proper, that maybe patience starts the list because patience is where everything else starts as well. If we do not have patience with one another — patience for one another’s sheer humanness — then no love can be exchanged at all. I must be patient with you so I can love you. And you must be patient with me before you can begin to love me at all.
In concert with these musings, God has been laying down these very tangible chances for me to exercise love as patience. It’s so hard and I wish He wouldn’t. Trying to keep back the barbed words of disdain that are just itching to spring from my tongue, trying to act with generous kindness instead of anxiety or self-promotion… when, really, I’d just rather act without any consideration of others, without any reservations about whether or not I’m being patient. But I don’t want to live that way anymore.
Last Thursday I was lying in the grass with Betsey and Emily and we were talking about the fruits of the spirit and which fruits we especially wanted to exemplify. (I think the two of them are already exceedingly fruitful and so it was difficult to imagine them lacking anything. Really.) As we talked, I realized that I would really love to be known as a gentle and patient woman. Those are such lovely characteristics, such beautiful virtues that I do not naturally possess. A quiet spirit. To be continually wrapped in peace and existing in peace. Soothed.
I feel peaceful now: my hardest exams are over and I don’t have another one until Monday. This afternoon I’ve had the time to do the things I love to do but don’t get to during the semester: like play guitar, solve the New York Times crossword puzzle, actually read The New York Times, lie in my bed and do nothing but listen to music, read smatterings of novels, even try writing.
In a bizarre burst of inspiration, I took up rewriting my feeble short story that has been a long time coming. I started it in June and rediscovered it this afternoon and thought, I need to just DO this and finish it, regardless of how awful it will inevitably be; the mere act of finishing will be an accomplishment and even if I never write another one again, I can at least say I’ve tried.
Currently
Reading: The New York Times Book Review, Cry, the Beloved Country
Hearing: “Simple X” by Andrew Bird and “Stay” by Alison Krauss
Thinking: but where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled…
27 April, 2008
the best gesture of my brain
Good things this weekend:
Aaron Copland!
Overusing the word “tremendous”
Sunshine and balmy weather
Being done with classes
Excellent food and conversation with Mr & Mrs Pratt
Finally playing the campus disc golf course with Guion
The grass
“Mad Mission” by Patty Griffin
Forest Theater at midnight with the Druids
The gradual threat of rain
Contentment and peace
This meager update is all I have time for now; big exams on Monday and Tuesday. More to come if and when clarity is resurrected. (But I am happy, so happy!)
since feeling is first
who pays any attentionto the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry—
the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
- e.e. cummings
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