yummy

...Every day
I see or hear

something

that

more or less

kills me

with delight,

that leaves me

like a needle

in the haystack

of light...

["Mindful," Mary Oliver]

For all of its misty moistiness, this day turned out deliciously! And even despite being overwhelmed and dog tired (like everyone else on this feverish campus), I am happy as I look forward to an evening of paper writing and laundry. Lately, my heart has been unaccountably exultant—I cannot count the number of times that a slant of light or a friend’s smile has sent it crackling and fizzing with inner delight. I think it must be Spring.

(Is your heart bursting yet?)

Was there no safety? No learning by heart the ways of the wolrd? No guide, no shelter, but all was miracle, and leaping from the pinnacle of a tower into the air? Could it be, even for elderly people, that this was life?--startling, unexpected, unknown? [virginia woolf]

...To tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists
of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money,

I don't even want to come in out of the rain... [mary oliver]

All that is glorious around us
is not, for me, these grand vistas, sublime peaks, mist-filled
overlooks, towering clouds, but doing errands on a day
of driving rain, staying dry inside the silver skin of the car,
160,000 miles, still running just fine. Or later,
sitting in a café warmed by the steam
from white chicken chili, two cups of dark coffee,
watching the red and gold leaves race down the street,
confetti from autumn’s bright parade. And I think
of how my mother struggles to breathe, how few good days
she has now, how we never think about the glories
of breath, oxygen cascading down our throats to the lungs,
simple as the journey of water over a rock. It is the nature
of stone / to be satisfied / writes Mary Oliver, It is the nature
of water / to want to be somewhere else, rushing down
boundless behind it. But everything glorious is around
us already: black and blue graffiti shining in the rain’s
bright glaze, the small rainbows of oil on the pavement,
where the last car to park has left its mark on the glistening
street, this radiant world. [barbara crooker]

(Mine is.)

one has need of fifty eyes

Why do I love To The Lighthouse so much?

One reason is its beauty. I love Woolf’s word usage: “fringed with joy,” “sunk in a green-grey somnolence,” “in a vast and benevolent lethargy of well-wishing,” “torches lolloping red and gold,” etc. Really: lolloping torches! That phrase struck me like so many Emily Dickinson images have, because of its freshness and aptness. I savored the lusciousness of Woolf’s prose to the last punctuation mark.

I also love it because it resonates poignantly with my own experiences. I can empathize with insufferable Tansley, who longs to “assert himself,” who is so prickly and lonesome and unhappy. I too battle with the destructive urges that compel him to disagreeable behaviors. I can relate to Lily, striving for integrity and wholeness in the midst of a thousand expectations that she fears she’ll never live up to (and perhaps does not desire to live up to). I also feel uncomfortably akin with Mr. Ramsey, his egoism and hunger for validation, his lack of humanity, and his blindness to the riches right at his fingertips. Mrs. Ramsey’s character allures me: her efforts against the inexorable fragmenting forces of life, her mission to thrust fellowship and meaning into interactions (even at the cost of her own need of privacy), her selfless energy. I cannot dislike any one character, not even Tansley, not even Mr. Ramsey, because I connect strongly with all of them. Nor can I overwhelmingly like any character—not Lily, not Mr. Bankes or Mrs. Ramsey—because they are depicted as human: flawed, petty, isolated.

I love how Woolf infuses the idea of what it means to be a woman into this novel: the incredible reserves of resilience, physical and emotional stamina, love, patience, and selflessness that are required of a wife or mother; the inescapable expectations that are held up to a woman in any phase of life; the difficulty of forging an inimitable self, beyond the roles that so easily engulf a woman’s personality. Even more, I found her depiction of humanity compelling: the inconsistency between ideals and realities that torments and baffles us, and our quest for ultimate meaning, validation, and love. To The Lighthouse made my heart ache, while at the same time making me giddily aware of the glory and intricacy of this complicated world. It filled me with a strong impulse to express grace in every way imaginable to all the people I encounter. I think it made me fall in love with the world and everyone in it, all over again.

...Another reason I love Mary Oliver...

The spirit
likes to dress up like this:
ten fingers,
ten toes,
shoulders, and all the rest
at night
in the black branches,
in the morning
in the blue branches
of the world.
It could float, of course,
but would rather
plumb rough matter.
Airy and shapeless thing,
it needs
the metaphor of the body,
lime and appetite,
the oceanic fluids;
it needs the body's world,
instinct
and imagination
and the dark hug of time,
sweetness
and tangibility,
to be understood,
to be more than pure light
that burns
where no one is --
so it enters us --
in the morning
shines from brute comfort
like a stitch of lightning;
and at night
lights up the deep and wondrous
drownings of the body
like a star.

snow?!

I awoke at 7:30 this morning, and flipped the switch on my lamp immediately so that I wouldn't drift back off to sleep...I sensed that I was at that perfect stage of rest when any more would've made me sluggish, and any less would've been inadequate. Delicious! After laying back on my pillow and allowing the world to gradually pour into my senses, I leaned over the edge of my bed to grab my Bible--and glanced out the window--at the flurrying SNOWFLAKES turning their faces at me as they petaled down! Even now, as I sit here typing, the snow continues its silent barrage, coating the rooftops and treelimbs and sidewalk edgings with a slick white paste. I'll not even bring up the fact that a mere two days ago I was off gallivanting in shorts and a T-shirt through the cross country trails. Weird, weird.

Last day of break today: I hope to squander it away at Amy Buck's house, because my dorm is beginning to depress me, and (I balk to confess it) coffee can only provide so much companionship. I've become quite a social creature, for all my professed independance. And that's not a bad thing.

Resurrection Sunday

I love Easter. I love the word, "Easter," the echo of "eastern" that it hints at, the connotation of sunrise and newness. I love how ungainly it sounds, and how earnest.

I've just returned from my church service at Cornerstone OPC. Today is colder than yesterday or the day before, and I'm less tempted to hike about in the sunshine, as glinting and joyous as it is. If I were home, I'd be at Oma's house, a mug of coffee cupped against my palms, listening to the aunts and uncles chatter. I'd also have trudged over there in knee-deep drifts of snow. I'm happy to be here.

Last Easter I was in Salzburg, traipsing through the Sound of Music gardens, stretching out on the banks of a Danube tributary, photographing the castle and the spectular views, revelling in the bells tolling out over the Franciscan cemetery, or sipping beer at the Italian restaurant.

Tonight will be eventful, though. I'm going to Will and Manda's home, to paint Easter eggs and play games and indulge in homemade treats.

Until then, I think I'll go upstairs and fix a pot of coffee to have with my apple, and perhaps pore over a book (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel?) as the afternoon wanes.

He is risen!

Spring:

Well: here I am, the second day into my all-too-brief Easter break, and nothing accomplished, excepting a gorgeous three-hour hike on the cross-country trails and a book pleasure-read and savored to the last punctuation mark. All the portentous goals I so studiously mapped out on the m&m "to do" list notepad on my refrigerator...alas, remain there. But I have had a lovely time.

Spring is here! And, as Mary Oliver would chant, "There rises up from the earth such blazing sweetness/ It fills you, thank God, with disorder." I love that. As I wandered through the trails yesterday, I thought about that poem, and how perfectly apt those words were: blazing sweetness. And I thought about that passage in Job, "These are but the outskirts of His ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of Him," as I studied the mosquitoes in the mud puddles and heard the percussion of the bare tree limbs in the breeze. How small a whisper do we hear of Him...and yet that whisper in my ears is so thunderous and so majestic that I cannot comprehend it. It smites me. If these are but the outskirts...I tremble to think about Heaven.

Always when I seek to express the weight of glory that bears down on me, I feel only an aching inadequacy. These trite rhapsodies will never do justice to the reality that so moves me.

My journal is full, and it has been four days since I've last sought to translate my experience into a tangible form. I have to purchase a new one, but I haven't a penny: so online blogging will have to suffice.

Now, I have a paper to write, and coffee to slurp, and a friend to visit.
Tomorrow is Easter!