Dante's Ninth

level, that is. Of a place that is not Paradiso. (not really--I just like euphemizing.)

Last night I was a spy in Communist Bulgaria. I was supposed to eat certain papers if I was ever discovered. Dr. Van was there--but I don't know if he was a friend or enemy. My family was there, too, and I didn't want anything to happen to them if I got caught, so I tried to put barriers between us. N was a spy, but he told Them that he was an actor, which I thought was pretty stupid and tried to cover up by insulting his acting ability, but I was nervous and made it worse. I thought they might be on to me--they made me watch the capture of a spy. But I wasn't sure. I desperately needed to tell someone something before they caught me. But I wasn't sure whether to disrupt the CC TV where They were always watching (thus making myself more suspicious) and make a dash for it, or wait them out. I was trying to decide...when my alarm went off.

I turned it off and rolled over, wanting to find out what happened to me. But then I remembered--I had to go to work.

5:45 is not my favorite time of day, but it's better than 4 (my mornings have been somewhere between these all week). At least there's a glimmer of light, which makes it seem not so bad. And I generally get home fairly early, which would be nice, if my inability to nap or go to bed early didn't hang on so persistently. I'm getting to know the road to the City well enough to drive it with my eyes closed, and I'm about ready to try. But tomorrow I get to sleep in until almost 7...

There are definitely good parts too--I'm reading a lot, and talking seriously with people. And I get to see a lot of the countryside. And yesterday I got to hang out at one of our new Starbucks popping up (which one of my regular riders perpetually refers to as "Starbuck"). I talked to the lady sweeping up and people who were adulterating their coffee, since my seat was near there (one guy asked me which was cream, so I told him I thought it was the one that said "half and half" sitting right in front). I read L's Father Brown book, and put in a good word for Chesterton to those who asked about my book (but one man told me he only read mysteries). The supervisor told me they wouldn't sell me any more refills. I laughed, which meant he was joking.

Today I told my riders they didn't want to see me without coffee. They thought I was joking.

I'm so tired, N, that I would be breathless giggling at the worst joke you could come up with. And since you're not here, I'm having to make the jokes myself.

from Conversation: a History of a Declining Art

"Swift lists two common faults in conversation that are difficult to remedy: talking about one’s own profession … and ‘impatience to interrupt others, and the Uneasiness of being interrupted ourselves.’ There are also those who suffer from ‘the Itch of Dispute and Contradiction, [and the] telling of Lies.’ And there are people "who are troubled with the Disease called the Wandering of the Thoughts that they are never present in Mind at what passeth in Discourse.’ According to Swift, ‘Whosoever labours under any of these possessions, is as unfit for Conversation as a Mad-man in Bedlam.’"

"‘Good conversation,’ [Swift] says, ‘is not to be expected in much company, because few listen, and there is continual interruption.’"

"Swift has a simple recommendation for improving conversation: include women. He praises the conversation at the court of Charles I: ‘the Methods then used for raising and cultivating Conversation, were altogether different from ours’ because ‘both Sexes … met to pass the Evenings in discoursing upon whatever agreeable Subjects were occasionally started.’"

"‘When [Esther Johnson] saw any of the company very warm in a wrong opinion, she was more inclined to confirm them in it than oppose them. The excuse she commonly gave when her friends asked the reason, was that it prevented noise and saved time.’"

"Swift says that if we lack the ‘useful Pleasure’ of conversation, ‘we are forced to take up either poor Amusements of Dress and Visiting, or the more pernicious ones of Play [gambling], Drink and Vicious Amours.’"

"The New York Times reports that Finland, a country where ‘silence is a sign of wisdom and good manners,’ and where people rarely have conversations during meals, has one of the world’s highest rates of suicide, depression, and alcoholism."

"Yet if conversation suffers from a lack of politeness, it also suffers from an excess of politeness…to question someone’s views is to risk being labeled judgmental or rude or arrogant (or worse)…instead of conversation we have confession…and conversation will languish because of suffocating politeness."

Life

Within the last few days, I have:

1. learned Russian for "butterfly," ("Babutchka"--"Babushka" is Grandma), and heard it for many other things, such as "I don't want to," "lets do ___," "this is," but unfortunately I can't repeat them all.

2. reconnected with my inner horsy nature. Neigh!

3. seen my former dentist as Gloucester in a Shakespeare in the Park. Don't quit your day job (actually, Edmund was pretty evil, and Lear enjoyable--he reminded me a bit of a mad Bilbo Baggins). The best part was right after intermission, when a small boy wandered through the lights, with a small "Daddy?" picked up by the microphones. The ducks also waddled through inimitably.

4. fallen in love. He has wonderful eyes and a wonderful smile, even if he only has six teeth. We don't speak the same language, but we can communicate easily. Unfortunately, he's about 20 years + 10 mos. younger than I am. And then, I may have to keep fighting my sister and all other females for his attention...

Yes, we have missionaries visiting (yay!). Mariya is 2 1/2 and speaks both languages (her mother is Russian), sometimes at the same time. Oh, that I had so much energy! And Lord Peter the Great is walking around in his race car and putting everything in his mouth. They are dolls--and I got to babysit in the nursery today. =) He wasn't very happy to see me, though--he had just fallen asleep when I took him away from his mother, and he opened his eyes and knew I was not her. Oh, well...

Rustico, Rusticare

Have I ever mentioned that I like living in the country?

I like getting directions like this: "when you come into town, go past first street and second street, and turn on the first paved road" (although, just for clarification, this is unusual even here).

Or someone telling me that when she started dating someone from a town 15 miles away, her dad asked if he couldn't find anyone there, and she replied that they were all related.

Or when someone I meet knows who I am and where I live and talks about calling my next-door neighbor to keep up on the news at our church.

Or when I ask someone if their children live close by, and they reply, sighing heavily, "No. They live in ___ (the next town over)."

But I still don't like Toby Keith.

Be fuddled, be mused, be wildered

I think that I shall never see
Anything as bewildering as me.

Or bewildered, perhaps. Especially when I wake up at a time I'm not expecting. Witness a conversation between me and my long-suffering roommate after I fell asleep (or after I woke up) on a Sunday afternoon sophomore year:

Me: Oh my goodness! I'm going to be late for class!

S:???

Me: It's 5:00! Why is it so light outside? And where is everyone? I need to get to class!

S: No you don't. It's Sunday. You took a nap.

Me: It's Sunday? I took a nap?!!!


Or between me and my long-suffering sister last week:

Me (shaking, because I slept until the alarm actually went off, and it scared me): C, it's 3:30.

C (groaning at being awakened--it was 3:30): so?

Me: Didn't you ask me to wake you up?

C: No. *(why would I do that when I can sleep?)*

Me: Oh. I guess not. I thought you did. Sorry.

C: zzzz


Or this morning:

Me: Oh, no! It's 3:00! I must have slept through my alarm! I'm an hour late! (leaping from bed, grabbing clothes, heading downstairs. Start to think about how I can make up lost time. Think: I was supposed to pick those people up at 6:00, which means I was going to leave town at 5:30, which means...oh. I was going to sleep until 5.)

I think I'm going to start setting two alarms so I can sleep better.

Otherwise, my day was quite uneventful. Read most of Lord Peter in the waiting room, took a few turns around outside, tried to take a nap (ha!). On the way home, I started hearing a flapping from the off hind tire. Pulled into a driveway to investigate. It wasn't flat, but there was a piece of duct tape sticking to it. I pulled this off, got back in the car, heard nary a noise, and drove off feeling happy.

I've also been reading Ralph Moody's books, and highly recommend them (they start with Little Britches). Fascinating and clearly-written autobiography about a boy/man who becomes the Man of the Family at 11 when his father dies, and how he works to provide for them and himself. Really enjoyable light reading--especially if you happen to like farming and ranching, but fun for anyone.

South of the Border

"The sun has ris,
The sun has set
And here we is,
In Texas yet."

Or was (were), at any rate.

Yes, we had a very enjoyable time. It was great fun to
meet my dad's relatives he grew up with and see his stomping grounds. My family are very welcoming and likable, and we heard lots of good stories and saw a lot of family resemblences (my dad has a twin uncle). We ate at Jim's (home of the best onion rings in the world) and went to the Alamo, and C almost set off the smoke detector in our room. And we found a trail of Starbucks along the way.

It was only slightly confusing at times, given the gorsy-ness of my family. An example: my great-aunts and uncles started talking about their Aunt Ollie coming. This took me a moment, because Aunt Ollie is also my great (count it- one)-aunt. And, while she is their aunt by marriage, she's a cousin (by marriage) to their step-brothers and sisters. This is because my grandma's half-siblings on her mother's side, although sharing no parent with her half-siblings on her father's side, are their first cousins once removed. No prizes for figuring it out, but you see why it's sometimes difficult to say exactly how someone is related to me (and kind of hard to keep track of their names, as their parents liked alliterative R names ending in ie/y). It might mean that I end up being some kind of cousin to myself, but I haven't gotten that far yet.

On the way back we went the less-interstate and more scenic route, winding around west Texas (not to be confused with West, Texas) hills and between cell phone towers. We started out with water over the road in San Antonio, but by the afternoon it was hot enough that the only water we saw disappeared just before we could get to it. The glare was bright enough that I thought I saw flashing lights in my rear view mirror once.

We wandered around to the metropolis of Santo, stopping at the convenience store to meet Aunt Ollie (yes, the very same). Then we took out across the railroad tracks, down the road, and had to turn around because the bridge was out. After going about twelve miles out of the way, we made it around to the other edge of the bridge, where we turned into someone's driveway and drove past the house and through the gate and across the cattle guard through their pasture, past some inquisitive cows and a calf that dashed across in front of us, through another gate, where my mom waved the flag and I put on my sunglasses/security/motorcade look, across a high railroad crossing where we scraped the bottom of the car, through a couple more gates, and into the East Santo Cemetery.

My family had done some history detection in April, and found, in the very back corner, my great-great-grandparents, Isaiah and Amandy, and an unmarked grave we believe to be that of my great-grandmother, Katherine Serena. After planting some flowers and waving to the engineers of the train going past, we wandered around looking at the graves that had names, all of whom seem to be relatives of some sort or another. C and I had fun running our fingers over mossy slabs trying to make out the letters. One I finally figured was "infants of" who "was borned April 20, 1877." Eventually we headed back to air conditioning and cold drinks and the cookies Aunt Ollie had brought us. CLC said I'm going to be like Aunt Vicky--I let them have cookies before supper.

From there we headed to my mom's twin's house and family, where we spent a short night and morning/afternoon. We girls actually had a slumber party at the neighbors' house, since they weren't there (well, except their daughter) and it was Saturday night with one shower. Then church--their pastor used to be one of my parents' professors in Bible college. He has a marvelous Scottish accent, even if he has given up the bagpipes. Then more food and visiting, and eventually

home.

Non

I had thought about posting on (among other things) the goodness of Work. However, after a 13 hour workday yest. (beginning around 4) I have decided to pone this post. Instead, I offer you some of the less interesting thoughts I had during the day.

Interesting and/or common driving hazards in my state:

A. wind
B. dirt (see A)
C. animals (deer, coyotes, armadillos, possums, skunks, the most common--wildcats don't get hit very often, and snakes, rabbits, and squirrels, although hit, do not present much hazard; cattle or sheep/goats can also prove a hazard if they get out)
D. cars backing up down Main Street
E. tractors/wheat trucks/combines, etc. driving slowly down the highway
F. little old ladies who can't see over the steering wheel (kids who can't reach the pedals stay on the backroads, so they don't present much of a hazard)
G. people stopped to talk in the middle of the road (not on the highway)

other hazards, although not as common, include the usual rain, sleet, snow, hail. However, it is possible to get stuck in sand without moisture the same way you get stuck in mud or snow.


Other thoughts:

I think I have figured out how people here vote Democrat. It's very simple:

1. Presume that no one else in the world knows anything or is capable of rational thought.
2. Do not attempt rational thought yourself, because you have no need to think, as you already Know.
3. Presume that you are Entitled to Everything at no cost to yourself.
4. Regurgitate (while removing every bit of an attempt at a veneer of logical thought, because you don't need it) something someone told you, believing it to be your own Original Idea (which it now is) because, of course, no one else knows anything.
5. Vote


We have wild turkeys hanging around--they make very interesting noises.


And now, for something like substance:

Please pray for our family over the next few days. My grandmother's step-mother died, and my dad was asked to preach the funeral, so we're all packing up and driving to San Antonio and back, and taking my grandparents. This will be the first time we kids have met a lot of my dad's side of the family (yes, this is a gorsy part of the bush--"Nanny" was the Second Widow). Most of them are not Christians, but my dad says he wouldn't be afraid to be in a dark alley with any of them (and that is a reasonable comment, from what I hear). Please pray for him especially.

Hasta Luego!

Grace and Peace

"He saw me ruined by the fall
Yet loved me notwithstanding all,
He saved me from my lost estate,
His lovingkindness, O how great!"

~Samuel Medley

"God is love, I surely know,
By my Savior's depths of woe.
O how vile my low estate
Since my ransom was so great."

~Robert C. Chapman

Silliness

While reading through Eliot, I was reminded of a spoof I wrote during Brit Lit last year. And even though I am now so far separated and graduated, I still remember this feeling. So, for your amusement (one way or the other) I present:


The Paper-Writing Song of -----

And indeed there will be time
Time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And a thousand more revisions;
But how should I begin?
And what should I presume?

I have measured out my term with coffee spoons.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the coffee, M&Ms, DP,
Among the frenzied late-night ASEs;
Would it have been worth while
If one, setting down a red pen, emptied, by my name
Should say: "That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant at all."

No! I am not Shakespeare, nor was meant to be;
Am full of run-on sentences, not quite acute;
At times, indeed, almost illiterate—
Almost, at times—Forsooth!

I grow old...I grow old...
I shall wear my curlers rolled.

I have lingered at my desk
By books covered with letters black on white
Till my roommate’s voice has waked me, at the end of night.

And would it have been worth it, after all?

East of Enid

Soon--going to the City. Visiting man from our church in the hospital, visiting aunt and uncle, returning N to school by means of the airport. And then returning tomorrow, so I can start work. =[

Happy news: Enid now has a Starbucks. ( =D!!!)

In Other Worlds...

If I recollect correctly
Things which never were,
I knew you (with incorrigibility) in a world
Of possibilities,
When Time was not submitted to the tyranny
Of Coming-Into-Being (being thrown),
But we waited for a property, existence,
To pass to us, and through us in the proper way;
Waiting in your eyes I saw things later-than--
Unactualized
In this poor universe
Of pure and simple facts of accidence.

Happiness

In lieu of other posts (brewing, but not boiling), I present to you the List of Works (but is it a work, or a text? and where is the Meaning in all of this? or isn't there one?) sitting before me filled with the knowledge of their importance (or the importance of their knowledge?). In top to bottom order (incidentally, it is very pleasant not to be graded on what one is writing. I can stick in as many parentheticals as I jolly well please!):

Tristram (now I know where that name comes from! At least he's not Tramtris!) Shandy
(and speaking of which, H, somehow I walked off with your copy of) Le Morte D'Arthur
The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
Impressions of Theophrastus (where, I wonder, that one?) Such, George Eliot
The Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius/ The Imitation of Christ, Thomas A Kempis/ Religio Medici, Thomas Browne
The Once and Future King, T. H. White
Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes
Browning and Italy
(and also, being read in between times--and in between innings at baseball games, although they really deserve a Sunday afternoon--,)
Collected Poems, T.S. Eliot
Selected Works of Robert Browning
Bring Me a Unicorn, A.M.L. (mine! my own, my--)
(Oh, that I had one of the many languages at the disposal of the previous authors for an intelligent and educated-sounding interjection of happiness)

Works I tried to get, but not there when N went to the Enid Library with my list:

The Divine Comedy, trans. Esolen or Sayers
Bleak House, Dickens
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hugo
The War of the Roses, Desmond Seward
The Iliad
and Unknown Books

Just finished All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren. A Fascinating and Gripping and Thinking and Imaginative sort of book, although anyone interested should also be warned that it contains some objectionable content and a good deal of objectionable language. But it re-inspired (good or bad) my love of Reading to the Exclusion of All Else (When my mother saw N return from the library, she said "Oh, no.")

Also intending to re-read (much slower and more thoroughly) history and philosophy sorts of books.

This sounds very ambitious (notice, I haven't touched the more-so ones yet),

But where shall I begin? And what should I presume?

(does anyone have any suggestions? for what to read Next? or additions or subtractions or multiplications or vectors or mathematical sorts of things to do to my list? I want the Right One.) In the meantime, I sit and looook at them, with a similar expression to that inspired by Dr. Pepper, nectar divine (and not even by Lord Goring, or others who shall rename mainless).

Imitations of Immortality

There are some things in life which can make a person feel his own mortality to a painful degree. Saying goodbye is one instance I’ve noticed it. You stand and look at the person across from you, or what passes for the person in this world, and you think, I have thirty seconds more to look at this face; twenty-eight now. And you think how you want time to stop, just for a moment, just so you can make this last, and don’t have to come to the inevitability of the last moment, the turning-around-and-walking-away. But you can’t; you try to think how to hold on to those moments, and eventually your twenty-eight seconds are gone and you haven’t said anything, and you shake your head and shrug and nod. And you are utterly helpless, utterly at the mercy of the march of the sun across the sky, and you turn around and go.

And when you’re leaving a place, you think of all the things you wish you had done differently; the times you rolled over in bed because you were too lazy to get up, the times you thought you should talk to someone but didn’t know what to say, and walked on by yourself. You imagine your actions differently over and over again, trying to make them different, but in the end, you know: you can’t.

And when you’re coming to a place, and you see folks you haven’t seen in a long time, and it comes over you all of a sudden that they’re not the way you remember them, they look old, and you look at yourself and realize you’re not the person you were; you’re old too. And a tightness comes over you when you realize how different from that person you are, the person who had the same name, and connections as yourself, but whose fears and delights were so foreign to those you’ve had for a long time; and you weep a bit for the person who is gone and can never come again.

Sometimes you forget about your helplessness, and think nothing bad can ever happen to you, you’re too smart to let it. You think that life was made for you to live, and the continuing existence of the world is tied up with the continuing well-being of your own person. Everyone naturally wants to be your friend.

And then maybe you hit some kind of a glitch, where things aren’t all right no matter how much you insist they have to be. And it comes to you, suddenly, when your car is spinning out of control and it’s too late to stop it, that maybe not everything had to be okay for you after all. Maybe people will cry a little, and shake their heads and say, what a pity, and then go right back to their business, just as if it had nothing to do with you. Maybe they think life is about them, instead.

Or you sit on the porch in the summer when the power is out and listen to the rain pounding down around you, and watch the lightning chasing the thunder across the sky, and you know you are small and damp. You know that magnificence, that unharnessed power has nothing to do with you, and could consume you in a flash.

But sometimes you know that there is a Power behind that, a Power that is the meaning which you are not. A Power in control not only of the mere universe, with its laws of space and time marching on, but outside and above that. A Power to Whom the nations are as a drop in the bucket. A Power that is the reason there is a person behind the mask the world sees.

And then maybe, if you are right in your mind, you realize that this Power made you in His image, that He became flesh and dwelt among us, that He humbled Himself and became obedient even to death on a cross, that He adopted you as His child. And you remember that He has promised to be with you wherever you go, and give to His beloved, even in your sleep. You have not come to a mountain that cannot be touched, but to the city of the living God.

And then you whisper to Him Who Was, and Is, and Is to Come, Who can hear you through the noise of the rain and the thunder and your own whispering, "through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness."

After words

Rhythm dancing on my face--

Living liquid silver grace--

Dust and time and tears erase.

And then the rain came. When we were so thirsty we had forgotten the sound of rain, its taste and smell, the cold wetness of it.

We would never have dreamed of it in the afternoon, when the dust wafted through us, filling eyes and noses, scouring our pores if a gust of wind came up. When our lips were dry, limbs numb, hearts panting for peace, peace. When we could not run any longer, wrung of every living drop, weary and faint.

Then the rain came. It flowed over us like the tears we had longed for (which would not come). The skies burst forth more furiously for being leashed, lashing us with liquid, pelting us in purity. The clouds broke and emptied. Our crust of bitterness fell away in the face of the unbearable gentleness of each drop.

The dust has settled, the air is cool now. There is a puddle in the yard, perfect for dancing.

Lightning leapt from His fingertips, but His voice was not in the thunder.

The View From Here

is something like this, although they haven't quite made it to our field yet. They say it's going to be the worst harvest in 50 years, but it still smells lovely.

Home at Harvest

My dirty toes barely reach the warm cement, pushing off to propel the wooden porch swing forward. I pick up my feet, letting it fall back, and the chains creak slightly. We haven’t had time to paint the swing yet, so I can still smell the pristine gold of fresh lumber, although I can’t see it in the dark. I look across the firefly-sprinkled yard toward the wheat fields. They sparkle golden in the sunlight, but now I only know they are there by following the bobbing lights on six combines, humming slowly back and forth.

The breeze brings me the sound of June-bugs and a man’s laugh from the next field over. It’s quiet enough to think here. Daytime heat relaxes a little now with the sun gone, but leaves the air ripe with the sweet fullness of wheat dust. It has been a good day.

The heat was much worse earlier. When I opened the door to go outside, wind hit me with the force of a yawning oven. I staggered into it, relaxing with every breath. Glaring warmth soaked into my back, my face, my tense shoulders, until I almost closed my eyes to sleep.

The dog started barking wildly in the front yard at our neighbor, who had driven up in his old gray Case combine. He offered to give us all rides while he cut our field. Caleb went first, of course, while we older ones sat on the edge of the porch and swung our legs, watching the slow progress forward and back, the roaring machine devouring everything in its path, chewing and spitting out straw in a golden cloud. Four young rabbits and a field mouse darted from their homes right before being demolished.

Most farmers don’t even own a combine anymore; they find it easier to simply hire the custom crews that start in Texas and work their way north. Those are usually made up of the swaggering type, wearing cowboy hats and tight jeans and Oakleys. Some of them are romantics wandering northward on the road for six months out of the year. Some are just running away. Some of them don’t know why they do it. My great-grandfather was a custom cutter too.

When it was finally my turn I climbed up the ladder into the cab and perched on the torn upholstery. We rumbled off. The height from the ground gave a clear view of my "neighborhood." Mesas stretched across the horizon five miles to the west, the dirt covering them just as red as when my mother climbed them as a little girl. The hollow caves in the layer of gypsum are full of stories. Men made them homes while hiding from the law; one of the ranches in the hills still belongs to the Daltons. Now the caves are dens of mountain lions, Prairie Rattlers and Diamondbacks, annually hunted in the area "Rattlesnake Rodeos," where you can eat fried rattlesnake, if you like the taste of rubber chicken. Between Cathedral Mountain and Lone Peak runs Cheyenne Valley, where the nomadic Cheyenne massacred cowboys riding up the Chisolm Trail.

Looking down from the air-conditioned cab, I saw millions of royal heads bowing to their fate under the swather’s onslaught. This was what they were waiting for, ever since they were planted last fall; through their December green; through the sparse rain and the early heat of May and the first regal week of June: to bring sustenance to men.

When my round was finished the field was bare, with only a heavy two o’clock shadow of golden stubble. We watched as the million flecks of light cascaded together in one pure stream from the chute to the truck bed, a pyramid slowly settling to fill in the corners. A couple of scissortail flycatchers sat on the telephone line watching us, occasionally chasing an insect meal on wings with their characteristic acrobatics.

Naturally we all wanted to go to the elevator. Six of us piled into the faded red cab of the 1950-something Dodge. Seats were ripping, smelling comfortably of grease and dirt. The window on my side only rolled halfway down. Caleb sat on my lap, his bare legs sticking to me. Levi straddled the stick shift on the floor and helped Stan turn the heavy wheel; we laughed. Slowly, we made our way to the elevator a mile north, and pulled in line to be weighed, then drove into the dark tunnel under the high white storage bins scraping the sky.

We couldn’t see the wheat, running out like golden treasure from a chest in Ali Baba’s cave, but we could still smell the richness and listen to the rush. When we went back to weigh the truck again, the attendant in cut-off sleeves and straw-dust stubble looked in the window and asked what we wanted to drink. We all asked for Dr. Pepper, and he came out balancing an armful. It was cold and sweet.

Now the diamond mine over my head is strewn with so many stars I can’t see sky in between. I tried to count them from a car window once when I was knee-high to a grasshopper: I think I made it to eighty-seven before falling asleep. If I stay awake long enough I can see the sunrise from where I am. The stars are dizzyingly close, closer than the lights of the nearest town. Eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-seven, eighty-eight. It’s been a good day.

Last Weekend

"Packing up. The nagging worry of departure. Lost keys, unwritten labels, tissue paper lying on the floor. I hate it all. Even now, when I have done so much of it, when I live, as the saying goes, in my boxes. Even to-day, when shutting drawers and flinging wide a hotel wardrobe, or the impersonal shelves of a furnished villa, is a methodical matter of routine, I am aware of sadness, of a sense of loss. Here, I say, we have lived, we have been happy. This has been ours, however brief the time. Though two nights only have been spent beneath a roof, yet we leave something of ourselves behind. Nothing material, not a hair-pin on a dressing-table, not an empty bottle of aspirin tablets, not a handkerchief beneath a pillow, but something indefinable, a moment of our lives, a thought, a mood.

This house sheltered us, we spoke, we loved within those walls. That was yesterday. To-day we pass on, we see it no more, and we are different, changed in some infinitesimal way. We can never be quite the same again."

~Daphne DuMaurier, Rebecca


"Darling, I am sorry that you left me crying. It is not that I am not happy--you must know--but because, for once, your leaving and the realization of your leaving came to me at the same moment and I could not help feeling how far you were going and how much we have together that we like to appreciate together, and that for a while we could not do that as directly. And I would rather feel badly (for that reason) than not feel that way. It is really such a cause of happiness to me."

~Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Bring Me a Unicorn

"To the faithful,
Absence is condensed presence--
To the others--there aren't any others!"

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety-Jig

"...Pastel mesas lifted toward the skies
With light-foot winds to leap them one by one.
Here are her scornful wastelands--proud and still...

Wide miles of sweet green cleanness everywhere,
Where distant, miraged silver waters lie,
And one grows drunken on the thin bright air..."


"My weariness drops from me like a cloak,
And I am rested as a child from sleep.
The old song brings the scent of blue wood-smoke
And wind-blown lavender for me to keep--

Out of the starry net--one song I hold--
Is sweeter than any song--and it is old."


"One of me slips away--
A small thin ghost--
Out to a still, grey place--
A strange, remembered way of loneliness--
Of distances and space--
Of eerie winds--and darkness
Coming down--
Miles and miles from a town."


"An old glad madness whirling within my veins,
A song on my lips--and a strange, wild ecstasy
That only the hearts of the very young may know
Lifting up in me...

And an old road--calling one who has been away
Such a long, long while."


"Love longing lingers, waits awaking here--
Returned to shadows of my soul's desire."

Traveling

Today I saw

A town named after me (or someone with my last name)
Cows who thought I was crazy
Mountains and trees
Farms
peoplepeoplepeople (who God loves)
The inside of my car
No light on the dashboard in Kentucky
Three places where God has rescued me
People I love
A road, going ever on and on and on...

Tomorrow I'm going lower-case home.

Congratulations, Class of '06!

"Thus says the LORD:

'Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
Let not the mighty man glory in his might,
Nor let the rich man glory in his riches;

But let him who glories glory in this,
That he understands and knows Me,
That I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.
For in these I delight,' says the LORD."

~Jeremiah 9:23, 24


Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I thy true Son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul's Shelter, Thou my high Tower:
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my treasure Thou art.

High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven's joys, O bright Heaven's Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.


Here is the conclusion of the matter.


Benedicat tibi Dominus et custodiat te,
Ostendat Dominus faciem suam tibi et misereatur tui,
Convertat Dominus vultum suum ad te et det tibi pacem.

~Numeri 6:24-26

Ave atque Vale

"What is more melancholy and more profound than to see a thousand objects for the first and the last time? To travel is to be born and die at every instant; perhaps, in the vaguest reaches of his mind, he did make comparisons between the shifting horizon and our human existence: all the things of life are perpetually fleeing before us; the dark and bright intervals are intermingled; after a dazzling moment, an eclipse; we look, we hasten, we stretch out our hands to grasp what is passing; each event is a turn in the road, and, all at once, we are old; we feel a shock; all is black; we distinguish an obscure door; the gloomy horse of life, which has been drawing us halts, and we see a veiled and unknown person unharnessing amid the shadow."

~Victor Hugo, Les Miserables