God in the Dust by Donna Freitas

God in the Dust:
What Catholics attacking 'The Golden Compass' are really afraid of
By Donna Freitas November 25, 2007

ON DEC. 7 New Line Cinema will release "The Golden Compass," starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, the first movie in a trilogy with the massive budget and family blockbuster potential of "The Lord of the Rings."

Yet, even before it opens, "The Golden Compass" finds itself at the center of a controversy. The Catholic League, a conservative religious organization, launched a campaign on Oct. 9 calling on all Catholics to boycott the film. The group also published a lengthy pamphlet attacking the story and distributed the pamphlet to Catholic schools across the country. Other groups have joined the fray, including the evangelical nonprofit Focus on the Family, whose magazine Plugged In urged parents to keep kids out of theaters showing the film. And the Christian blogosphere is alive with warnings not only about the movie trilogy, but also about the series of books it is based on.

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, charges that the books, known as the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, are deeply anti-Christian. Donohue says he fears that the film will inspire parents to purchase "His Dark Materials" for their fantasy-hungry kids on Christmas, unaware that the third book of the series, "The Amber Spyglass," climaxes in an epic battle to destroy God. Some of the book's villains are referred to as the Magisterium - a term used to refer to the Catholic hierarchy. The British author, Philip Pullman, has said openly that he is an atheist, and Donohue charges that his books are designed to eradicate faith among children.

But this is a sad misreading of the trilogy. These books are deeply theological, and deeply Christian in their theology. The universe of "His Dark Materials" is permeated by a God in love with creation, who watches out for the meekest of all beings - the poor, the marginalized, and the lost. It is a God who yearns to be loved through our respect for the body, the earth, and through our lives in the here and now. This is a rejection of the more classical notion of a detached, transcendent God, but I am a Catholic theologian, and reading this fantasy trilogy enhanced my sense of the divine, of virtue, of the soul, of my faith in God.

The book's concept of God, in fact, is what makes Pullman's work so threatening. His trilogy is not filled with attacks on Christianity, but with attacks on authorities who claim access to one true interpretation of a religion. Pullman's work is filled with the feminist and liberation strands of Catholic theology that have sustained my own faith, and which threaten the power structure of the church. Pullman's work is not anti-Christian, but anti-orthodox.

This emerging controversy, then, is deeply unusual. It features an artist who claims atheism, but whose work is unabashedly theistic. And it features a series of books that are at once charming and thrilling children's literature, and a story that explores some of the most divisive and fascinating issues in Catholic theology today.

Pullman wasn't always "the most dangerous man in Britain" as he has been called by columnist Peter Hitchens. Pullman studied literature at Oxford, went on to become a schoolteacher, and then discovered he had a knack for drawing middle-school-aged children to the edge of their seats over classics like "Beowulf." Pullman began to write stories of his own in the early '80s.

It wasn't until Pullman married his talent for epic adventure with the genre of children's fantasy in "His Dark Materials" that he reached a wide audience. The book the movie is based on, "The Golden Compass," came out in 1995 and won the Carnegie Medal, awarded for an outstanding book of children's literature. The sequel, "The Subtle Knife," was released in 1997, and the final installment, "The Amber Spyglass," was published in 2000 to wide acclaim, including the prestigious Whitbread Prize, the first given for a children's book. The series has sold some 12 million copies worldwide.

In interviews, Pullman has gone on record as an atheist, not only doubting God's existence but charging that organized religion has been an instrument of evil in world history. He has criticized C.S. Lewis's Christian allegory "The Chronicles of Narnia," because Pullman sees in "Narnia" a world in which innocence is so prized that Lewis never allows his heroines and heroes to grow up.

But to reduce Pullman to these few juicy sound bites is to ignore the whole of a complex, exuberantly curious intellectual who has infused his writing with a complex, crisply rendered theology.

The trilogy is a retelling of Milton's "Paradise Lost," the classic epic poem from which Pullman borrowed a line, "His Dark Materials." Milton tells of the battle between Lucifer's army of fallen angels and God's rule in heaven. In "Paradise Lost," God prevails. But in Pullman's book, the two child protagonists help to defeat the rule of the Authority and the Authority dies.

When critics say that Pullman's series advocates killing God, this is what they mean. But that is the most literal possible reading, and misses the point of the books.

The "God" who dies in "The Amber Spyglass" is not a true God at all. Pullman's Authority is an impostor, more like Milton's Lucifer than like a traditional conception of God. In the novels, the universe's first angel tricked all other angels and conscious beings created after him into believing he is God, and has spent an eternity building a corrupt empire for the purpose of hanging on to absolute power.

Readers of the trilogy know that the Authority is a tyrannical figure who uses his power to deceive, to conceal, and to terrorize. His death not only liberates all beings, but reveals the true God, in which and in whom all good things - knowledge, truth, spirit, bodies, and matter - are made. The impostor God has spent an eternity trying to wipe out all traces of the divine fabric of the true God - what Pullman calls Dust - because it is so threatening to his rule.

Most Christians are taught to imagine God through the first and second parts of the Trinity, through the Father (God) and the Son (Jesus). Pullman's vision of God is much closer to the third part of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit. Dust is the Holy Spirit.

For Christians, then, perhaps the most important concept of all in the story is that divinity isn't just a being, but a substance that loves us and animates us, yet has a mind of its own. In the books, Dust's love for humans is unconditional, even though they often do things to hurt and deplete Dust's influence and presence. Dust has many names in "His Dark Materials": Wisdom, Consciousness, Spirit, Dark Matter.

Dust also has a distinctly female cast. When Pullman personifies Dust, and he does on occasion, he uses the pronoun she. Evoking the third person of the trinity as female is nothing new - in fact it's biblical. Wisdom (Sophia in Greek) is the feminine aspect of the Holy Spirit. One finds God spoken of as she in both Proverbs and the Psalms (among other places). Framing the divine through Spirit-Sophia is nothing new either - this is a move made famous by the work of revered Catholic feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson, a professor at Fordham, in "She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse," now a classic text among Christian feminist scholars.

God is not dead, then: A false God has died and the true God - a feminine divine - is revealed.

The universe of "His Dark Materials" is far from atheistic or anti-Christian, but to understand why, we must allow ourselves to open up to a theological vision that exceeds the narrow agenda set by some Catholics.

Pullman's Dust certainly moves beyond orthodox Christian ideas about God. Dust is a "spirit" that transcends creation, but all living beings are made of Dust, so Dust is a part of creation. While Dust is indeed the divine fabric of the worlds of "His Dark Materials," Dust is not all-powerful, all-knowing, and immutable. Dust is as dependent on creation for its sustenance as we are dependent on Dust for ours.

This view of Dust echoes many of the theological ideas that the Catholic Church finds threatening today. The most obvious thread is liberation theology, the Marxist and socially progressive rereading of the Gospels born among Catholic theologians in Latin America in the 1960s. Liberation theology teaches that Jesus is a political revolutionary who loves all that God has created and wants all creation to flourish on this earth, not just in heaven. Liberation theology also holds that believers should disregard doctrine that leads to oppression.

This is not an idea in favor with the current leadership of the church. In placing the common welfare above the dictates of church authorities, this movement has sparked a long running battle with the Catholic hierarchy. The Church has issued high-profile attacks on liberation theologians, both in official Vatican documents and, perhaps most famously, in the reprimands issued to the former Brazilian Franciscan priest Leonardo Boff by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a Vatican office led by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. The cardinal is now Pope Benedict XVI.

Dust also reflects strains in feminist theology that reframe the divine as feminine and hold that Christians' relationship with the divine is mutual, not hierarchical: We make ourselves vulnerable to God as God makes God's self vulnerable to us. Many see this feminized God as a kind of heresy - a rejection literally embodied in the fact that women are forbidden to represent Jesus through the Catholic priesthood.

Pullman's characters who discover the true God fall so deeply in love with the divine that they will sacrifice everything - even the bonds of first love. They are willing to hold on to this God even if it requires that they wage war with the powers that be, the authorities called Church and Magisterium - those who rule by secrecy and serve a false God who takes the form of the old man in the sky.

It is a beautiful story, and a Christian story. It is a story that could prompt believers to reflect on their faith. It is just not a story that everyone may want you to read.

Donna Freitas is a visiting assistant professor of religion at Boston University. She is the coauthor of "Killing the Imposter God: Philip Pullman's Spiritual Imagination in His Dark Materials," and author of the forthcoming "Sex and the Soul" from Oxford University Press.

Link to Boston Globe's Article: http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2007/11/25/god_in_the_dust/?page=full

Donna Freitas's Web Site:
http://www.donnafreitas.com/

Saturday Morning Cereal: Marianne Moore Quotes

"Ecstasy affords / the occasion and expediency determines the form."

"The 'ability to be drunk with a sudden realization of value in things others never notice' can metamorphose our detestable reasonableness and offset a whole planetary system of deadness."

"the artist biased by imagination is the poet."

"The power of the visible / is the invisible"

"A reverence for mystery is not a vague, invertebrate thing. The realm of the spirit is the only realm in which experience is able to corroborate the fact that the real can also be the actual."

Quote of the Day

"Man's chief difference from the brutes lies in the exuberant excess of his subjective propensities. Prune his extravagance, sober him, and you undo him."

William James, quoted by Marianne Moore in the "Foreword" to the Marianne Moore Reader, quoted by Charles Molesworth in Marianne Moore: A Literary Life, quoted by J.K. Kelley on Write Now.

Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Efraim's Daughter Longstocking

This week marks the birthday of the author who created that terribly cute character Pippi Longstocking. Pippi claimed that her full name was Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Efraim's Daughter Longstocking. Her creator had an equally ambitious name, Astrid Anna Emilia Lindgren.

I have to admit that I didn't come to know and love Pippi through Ms. Lindgren's books. I recall a Saturday morning television adaptation that ran during my childhood (in the 1980s) with fantastically bad dubbing into English over the original Swedish. I believe an animated Pippi was recently released that I have yet to see, nor plan to see. I appreciate animation but Pippi needs a flesh-and-blood actress and an assorted menagerie of animals to round out the cast. I believe the animals talk, right? I know she lived alone in a rambling Victorian house with a monkey and her horse. I remember them having conversations. Animated talking animals is just plain cheating. And I know she was a very, very strong girl--able to lift cars and the like.

If I had to bet money on whether or not the animals were loquacious, I wouldn't bet a dime on my memory. Especially these days. I have to admit that I have always possessed a degree of whimsical absentmindedness. (Back in the day, it was known as air-headedness.) I lose my keys. I leave for the airport without knowing which airline I am flying. Friends call me to remind me to attend social functions in my honor. Mostly it is harmless. Mostly it is annoying for me and not for others. (I hope.)

This past Monday I had prepared a Trader Joe's brown paper bag filled with items that needed to be hauled via metro to the post office. I had big plans to mail several packages. The key package contained a reverse-birthday gift. You would think that life long friends could remember each other's birthdays. Well, like attracts like because my friend and I resorted to reverse birthdays several years ago. On his birthday (sometime in earlyish July) he sends me a gift. On my birthday (mid-Novemberish), I send him a gift. This way we ALWAYS remember to celebrate each other! I was enormously proud of myself because I had his gift ready to go and ready to mailed in time to arrive for my birthday.

I lugged the bag of stuff--including several books--to the metro. Walked to the post office. And the door was locked. I rattled the handle. I sighed. Yes, it was Veteran's Day. Deeper sigh. I turned around and did the reverse trip home. I entered my foyer and set down my bag of goodies to dig for my mail key. I opened my mail box and then, duh, it was still Veteran's Day. I cursed our third floor walk up. I cursed my wasted trip.

The package was eventually mailed after my birthday--more than a week later. Luckily reverse birthdays are month-based instead of actual date-of-birth centric. Ms. Pippi Longstocking would admire our creative reverse birthday pluck. She would not, however, condone my lack of outing guile.

More Words Gathered

aboulie, abulia
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin, from 2a- + Greek boul will
Date: circa 1864
: abnormal lack of ability to act or to make decisions

jeremiad
Function: noun
Etymology: French jérémiade, from Jérémie Jeremiah, from Late Latin Jeremias
Date: 1780
: a prolonged lamentation or complaint; also : a cautionary or angry harangue

adumbrate
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: Latin adumbratus, past participle of adumbrare, from ad- + umbra shadow -- more at UMBRAGE
Date: 1581
1 : to foreshadow vaguely : INTIMATE
2 : to suggest, disclose, or outline partially
3 : OVERSHADOW, OBSCURE

octothorpe
: the symbol #
Example sentence:
Barry noticed the pound sign on the telephone and remarked about how much the octothorpe resembled a tic-tac-toe grid.

catachesis
Etymology: Latin, from Greek katachrsis misuse, from katachrsthai to use up, misuse, from kata- + chrsthai to use
Date: 1550
1 : use of the wrong word for the context
2 : use of a forced and especially paradoxical figure of speech (as blind mouths)

weltanschauung
Function: noun
Usage: often capitalized
Etymology: German, from Welt world + Anschauung view
Date: 1868
: a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint

litotes
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek litots, from litos simple, perhaps from lit-, lis linen cloth
Date: 1589
: understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary (as in "not a bad singer" or "not unhappy")

parataxis
Etymology: New Latin, from Greek, act of placing side by side, from paratassein to place side by side, from para- + tassein to arrange
Date: circa 1842
: the placing of clauses or phrases one after another without coordinating or subordinating connectives

Wallace Stevens: The Emperor of Ice-Cream

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Marianne Moore: Voracities and Verities Sometimes are Interacting

___I don't like diamonds;
the emerald's "grass-lamp glow" is better;
_____and unobtrusiveness is dazzling,
_______upon occasion.
_____Some kinds of gratitude are trying.

___Poets, don't make a fuss;
the elephant's "crooked trumpet" "doth write";
_____and to a tiger-book I am reading -
_______I think you know the one -
_____I am under obligation.

_______One may be pardoned, yes I know
_______one may, for love undying.

Moore's footnote:  Tiger-book:  Major James Corbett's 
Man-Eaters of Kumaon

Quote of the Day

"The thing is to see the vision and not deny it; to care and admit that we do"

Marianne Moore, The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 426

More Words Gathered

legerdemain
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French leger de main light of hand
Date: 15th century
1 : SLEIGHT OF HAND
2 : a display of skill or adroitness

With startling legerdemain she presses the reader toward the truth, as Costello has suggested,
and just for a moment we glimpse the genuine, in this case the fact that
Marianne Moore is playing with the word "imagine" and we see an entirely
opposite meaning in the passage.

au courant
Function: adjective
Etymology: French, literally, in the current
Date: 1762
1 a : fully informed : UP-TO-DATE b : FASHIONABLE, STYLISH
2 : fully familiar : CONVERSANT

As different as she was from the fashionably au courant, she was encouraged by her friends' romantic but common insistence on the right to be oneself, while at the same time she was given to distrusting the self.

gallimaufry
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -fries
Etymology: Middle French galimafree stew
Date: circa 1556
: HODGEPODGE

One Laptop Per Child

Check out this video report by New York Time's David Pouge:

http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=6ffd976ed367bacae4171dd4999d36431c84b0f5

Robert Frost: Unharvested

UNHARVESTED

A scent of ripeness from over a wall.
And come to leave the routine road
And look for what has made me stall,
There sure enough was an apple tree
That had eased itself of its summer load,
And of all but its trivial foliage free,
Now breathed as light as a lady’s fan.
For there had been an apple fall
As complete as the apple had given man.
The ground was one circle of solid red.

May something go always unharvested!
May much stay out of our stated plan,
Apples or something forgotten and left,
So smelling their sweetness would be no theft.

New Online Novel Contests

New York Times
October 1, 2007
Publishers Seek Talent Online
By MOTOKO RICH

Joining the growing list of publishers that use public votes to decide what to publish, Penguin Group is teaming with Amazon.com and Hewlett Packard for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. From today through Nov. 5, contestants from 20 countries can submit unpublished manuscripts of English-language novels to Amazon, which will assign a small group of its top-rated online reviewers to evaluate 5,000-word excerpts and narrow the field to 1,000.

The full manuscripts of those semifinalists will be submitted to Publishers Weekly, which will assign reviewers to each. Amazon will post the reviews, along with excerpts, online, where customers can make comments. Using those comments and the magazine’s reviews, Penguin will winnow the field to 100 finalists who will get two readings by Penguin editors. When a final 10 manuscripts are selected, a panel including Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of the current nonfiction paperback best seller “Eat, Pray, Love,” and John Freeman, the president of the National Book Critics Circle, will read and post comments on the novels at Amazon. Readers can then vote on the winner, who will receive a publishing contract and a $25,000 advance from Penguin.

Separately, Borders Group, the bookstore chain, is teaming with Gather.com, the social networking site, and Court TV to solicit unpublished manuscripts from mystery or crime writers. A panel of judges that includes the writers Harlan Coben and Sandra Brown will crown the winner from a pool of finalists selected by voters on Gather.com. The winner will receive a $5,000 advance and will be published by Borders itself.

Link to New York Times Article

More Words Gathered

A note on word gathering:

I am reading extensively the poetry of W.B. Yeats and commentary and analysis of his work, life and times. As I read I gather the words that I recognize but can't fully define (if there was a test) as well as words that are brand new to me. Or sometimes I pick words that are downright silly sounding or looking.

This is something that I used to teach my students to do as they read. Let's say that I demonstrated the technique to them. Whether or not they availed themselves of the strategy is up for grabs. Nevertheless, I became addicted to amping up my reading (and writing) in this way. What can I say, I used to read the "It Pays to Increase Your Word Power" segments in the Reader's Digest when I visited my Grandma on the weekends. My college roommate and I used to read the dictionary on Friday nights. Living now with a non-native English speaker, I am attuned to the nuances of communication and the need for simplicity and clarity--yet I love the splendor of such things:

mawkish
Etymology: Middle English mawke maggot, probably from Old Norse mathkr -- more at MAGGOT
1 : having an insipid often unpleasant taste
2 : sickly or puerilely sentimental

syncretism
Etymology: New Latin syncretismus, from Greek synkrEtismos federation of Cretan cities, from syn- + KrEt-, KrEs Cretan
1 : the combination of different forms of belief or practice
2 : the fusion of two or more originally different inflectional forms

hieractic
Etymology: Latin hieraticus sacerdotal, from Greek hieratikos, from hierasthai to perform priestly functions, from hieros sacred; probably akin to Sanskrit isara vigorous
1 : constituting or belonging to a cursive form of ancient Egyptian writing simpler than the hieroglyphic
2 : SACERDOTAL
3 : highly stylized or formal

fissiparous
\fih-SIP-uh-rus\
tending to break up into parts : divisive
Example sentence: The reorganization of management can have a fissiparous effect on the rest of the company.

palimpsest
Etymology: Latin palimpsestus, from Greek palimpsEstos scraped again, from palin + psEn to rub, scrape; akin to Sanskrit psAti, babhasti he chews
1 : writing material (as a parchment or tablet) used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased
2 : something having usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the surface

manque
Etymology: French, from past participle of manquer to lack, fail, from Italian mancare, from manco lacking, left-handed, from Latin, having a crippled hand, probably from manus
: short of or frustrated in the fulfillment of one's aspirations or talents -- used postpositively

hypotaxis
Etymology: New Latin, from Greek, subjection, from hypotassein to arrange under, from hypo- + tassein to arrange
: syntactic subordination (as by a conjunction)

perspicious
Etymology: Latin perspicuus transparent, perspicuous, from perspicere
: plain to the understanding especially because of clarity and precision of presentation

Garrison Keillor: Ford Hall Forum Address on Cheefulness

Last night we attended the Ford Hall Forum lecture series at Northeastern University. As I learned last night, this series is a ninety-nine years long tradition providing free lectures and debates for the Boston public. We were there to hear Garrison Keillor.

Mr. Keillor is touring and touting his new book, Pontoon. He got that business out of the way right up front in a humorous self-deprecating way, never describing the contents of the book. You can be sure, however, that the work will cheer you up. After a delightful expose of aging and its farcical vicissitudes, Keillor explored how the proper response to such absurdities is cheerfulness. Keillor believes that art should uplift the soul, make us see the world or at least our experiences in a more flattering light, perhaps candlelight for those, like him, who have turned sixty-five this year. He lambastes modern poetry and literature for torturing high school readers with the likes of T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land", turning potential life-long readers into the opposite.

Keillor embraced the philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Here was a man who advocated for literature and its relevance for the American way of life. He traveled the country and talked about this ideas. He sold cheerfulness and optimism as a way of life. He paved the way for writers and intellectuals. Keillor rued his most famous protege, Thoreau, who has been sold to young Americans at many graduations speeches as the valiant individualist who walked to the beat of his own drummer--as if it were a good thing to forsake community and the pleasures of society. As if being alone could substitute for the richness of friends and the vitality of life lived in touch with the living.

T.S. Eliot, Keillor noted, was miserable and packaged his agony for all to endure as Art. If only Eliot would have had sex much sooner, the course of modern art and literature in America would be far more virile than its sad state today. Sex, it seems, is good grounds to cause what we all need more of, cheerfulness. Children too seem an antidote to gloom. Keillor described episodes from his nine-year-old daughter's life that reveal how resilience doesn't have to develop thick-skin or cultivate fear and terror and its result, isolation. Children move on from each tragedy or indignity, ready for more experiences, more fun, more of the ever delightful same story read for the fiftieth time if it is read by someone who loves them.

There was a question-and-comment section at the end of the lecture with various accolades and entrapments (involving Keillor's pro-Bush's retirement stance and his personal religious faith stance), all of which Keillor handled with amiable aplomb.

As I left the hall, I overhead one woman, who was glowing, say that "it was like vitamins" for her spirit. I assume she is the kind of person who enjoys taking vitamins. After all, she was flush with cheerfulness.

Indeed, Keillor's comments made me think about my own novel-in-progress. The contents are not cheerful. Yet it makes me cheerful to right it. As I engage in the creative process I come alive in ways that the occasional yoga class, certainly laundry, even eating a fine meal can't rival. Maybe I do need to insert a comic break in my novel, well, just because. Keillor said at some point in the night, "When in doubt, write something funny." Alas, I wish I had the comic marrow-bones to do it. I can barely be funny in real life.

Writing my blog makes me cheerful. There, that is the best justification for blogging I have yet to develop.

Later that night we strolled down Newbury street after a fresh juice at the Trident. It was a fall night, air crisp and new scarves bound snugly against our throats. Suddenly, I came to a full stop and turned to face my husband. "Let's name him Garrison." (Here referring to our yet-to-be-born child.) He didn't think it resonated with either of our last names. But wouldn't that be a legacy worthy enough to pass on to American's new generation? Can you tell that I think Garrison Keillor is a jewel?

Among School Children by W.B. Yeats

I
I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and histories,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way -- the children’s eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.

II
I dream of a Ledaean body, bent
Above a sinking fire, a tale that she
Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event
That changed some childish day to tragedy --
Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent
Into a sphere from youthful sympathy,
Or else, to alter Plato’s parable,
Into the yolk and white of the one shell.

III
And thinking of that fit of grief or rage
I look upon one child or t’other there
And wonder if she stood so at that age --
For even daughters of the swan can share
Something of every paddler’s heritage --
And had that colour upon cheek or hair,
And thereupon my heart is driven wild:
She stands before me as a living child.

IV
Her present image floats into the mind --
Did Quattrocento finger fashion it
Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind
And took a mess of shadows for its meat?
And I though never of Ledaean kind
Had pretty plumage once -- enough of that,
Better to smile on all that smile, and show
There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.

V
What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap
Honey of generation had betrayed,
And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape
As recollection or the drug decide,
Would think her Son, did she but see that shape
With sixty or more winters on its head,
A compensation for the pang of his birth,
Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?

VI
Plato thought nature but a spume that plays
Upon a ghostly paradigm of things;
Soldier Aristotle played the taws
Upon the bottom of a king of kings;
World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras
Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings
What a star sang and careless Muses heard:
Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.

VII
Both nuns and mothers worship images,
But those the candles light are not as those
That animate a mother’s reveries,
But keep a marble or a bronze repose.
And yet they too break hearts -- O presences
That passion, piety or affection knows,
And that all heavenly glory symbolise --
O self-born mockers of man’s enterprise;

VIII
Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

Reading and Analysis of poem by Helen Vendler at Harvard:

http://athome.harvard.edu/programs/vendler/index.html

Word Gathering (Again)

abjure
1 a: to renounce upon oath / b: to reject solemnly
2: to abstain from: avoid

adjure
1: to command solemnly under or as if under oath or penalty of a curse
2: to urge or advise earnestly

vitreous
2: of, relating to, derived from, or consisting of glass

priapic
Etymology: Latin priapus lecher, from Priapus
1: phallic
2: relating to or preoccupied with virility or male sexual excitement

apposite
: highly pertinent or appropriate : apt

plangent
1: having a loud reverberating sound
2: having an expressive and especially plaintive quality

vatic
: prophetic, oracular

apotropaic
: designed to avert evil

descant
2: discourse or comment on a theme

chthonic
of or relating to the undeworld

equanimity
Etymology: Latin aequanimitas, from aequo animo with even mind

Word Gathering

peignoir
a woman's loose negligee or dressing gown

epigone
an inferior imitator

jejune
1 : lacking nutritive value <jejune diets>
2 : devoid of significance or interest : DULL <jejune lectures>
3 : JUVENILE, PUERILE <jejune reflections on life and art>
synonym see INSIPID

instantiate
to represent (an abstraction) by a concrete instance instantiate ideals -- W. J. Bennett>

tautology
needless repetition of an idea, statement, or word

chimera
1 a capitalized : a fire-breathing she-monster in Greek mythology having a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail b : an imaginary monster compounded of incongruous parts
2 : an illusion or fabrication of the mind; especially : an unrealizable dream chimera in my brain, troubles me in my prayer -- John Donne>
3 : an individual, organ, or part consisting of tissues of diverse genetic constitution

Word Gathering

chrysalis
1 a : a pupa of a butterfly ; broadly : an insect pupa
b : the enclosing case or covering of a pupa
2 : a protecting covering : a sheltered state or stage of being or growth

Mobius strip
a one-sided surface that is constructed from a rectangle by holding one end fixed, rotating the opposite end through 180 degrees, and joining it to the first end

simulacrum
1 : IMAGE, REPRESENTATION
2 : an insubstantial form or semblance of something : TRACE

parturition
: the action or process of giving birth to offspring

benighted
1 : overtaken by darkness or night
2 : existing in a state of intellectual, moral, or social darkness : UNENLIGHTENED

kismet
fate

gyre
a circular or spiral motion or form; especially : a giant circular oceanic surface current

saturnalia
an unrestrained often licentious celebration : ORGY b : EXCESS, EXTRAVAGANCE

epigram
1 : a concise poem dealing pointedly and often satirically with a single thought or event and often ending with an ingenious turn of thought
2 : a terse, sage, or witty and often paradoxical saying

epigraph
1: an engraved inscription
2: a quotation set at the beginning of a literary work or one of its divisions so suggest its theme

In Boxes

Cardboard is surely one of the least acclaimed inventions.

A home furnished and stocked with two bibliophiles’ flotsam and never-to-be-jettisoned accumulations needs less than twenty-four hours to be fully boxed by professional packers and loaded into one massive truck. The quick upload, however, has been a slow download in our new abode. A three-floor walk up seemed doable given location, central air, and tandem parking when I first saw the apartment. Watching four sweaty guys haul my medieval history, Romantic poetry, and feminist and liberation theology, not to mention just about all my scrupulous notes in thick binders from undergraduate studies, was painful to bear. I tipped them well. The movers have been gone a week now and we are dangerously close to accepting a few stacked boxes as functional end tables or practical lamp stands.

Back to cardboard. We swim in it. We heft our empties down three flights, then down a fourth flight and into the basement. Then with wild abandon we buy more cardboard boxes filled with ready-to-be-assembled bookshelves, a desk, that wedding china I finally need to round out our set, and yet more books from Amazon.com. Then we haul those fresh empties down four flights. The cardboard queues patiently for the once-a-week recycling pick up. It will take weeks to remove them all.

I once visited a company that manufactured cardboard boxes. I saw the sheets of ordinary brown cardboard perforated, printed, and cut into the strange shapes designed to transform them into useful containers to carry fried chicken or entire households as requested. I was impressed by the efficiency of the operation. I was also glad that it was not my job to turn paper into magic boxes. After making the move from the Midwest to the East Coast I know a few more things about life and cardboard:

1. Professional movers are worth every cent.

2. Cardboard is essential. I am thankful to the cardboard box makers.

3. GPS is essential--especially in Boston.

Really, I don’t know why I have broken my blogging silence with this utterly boring rumination about cardboard. I could write about our road trip with many firsts for me including a side trip to a gun show in Ohio , dinner with a Georger, a stroll beneath the Niagara Falls, a night in a Canadian B&B, and a trip to see Mass MoCa (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) in North Adams.

Or I could write about our last few days in South Bend, which were perfectly filled with friends. Sharon at the farmers market saved us a seat at her counter for our last Saturday trip to the diner. She even gave us a parting gift.

I could write about our new neighborhood. Or my new modern poetry class. Or progress on my novel. Or how we still don’t have a mail key. Yet:

O Cardboard filled with treasures packed! O life contained!

Cardboard is life these days. Soon to be recycled.

Video: Notre Dame--Get Fired Up for the Season

Thanks to Dave for passing this along. Twenty minutes to wake up the echoes.....

http://mfile.akamai.com/26783/wmv/cstvcbs.download.akamai.com/8108/open/nd/07-08/video/m-footbl/08aug/083007_m-footbl_primer_hi.asx

"To My Yugoslavian In-Laws" by Debra Gingerich

If we could speak,
I would tell you that we have
trees here too, and rivers.
I know how to hammer
a nail. Transatlantic phone calls
are expensive, even for us
with our two cars, dishwasher
and American salaries. That he
will not get lazy or forget
about the ways he needed to make money
during the war, the merchandise
exchanged in dark corners of Turkey.
He is still thankful for good health.
He passes on every kiss
you tell him to give me.
I would admit that he misses
the stone beaches of the Adriatic,
he accepts the Atlantic's murky water
as part of the compromise. He thinks
Lancaster's streets are too vacant
at night and there is no place
to ride a bike. Also, that I wouldn't take
your name and will never
believe the wine in the cup
turns to blood. That he and I can't
agree on a slipcover for the couch.
That there is no perfect place
for anyone.

As heard today on the Writer's Almanac. Visit the link, hear and purchase the poem here: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/

Writerly Quote of the Day

"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? So that it will make us happy? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books." ----Kafka

Health and Beyond

The strep test returned negative. The virus remains unidentified. It was July 21st when I finally measured my 38.5 degree C / 101 degree F temperature. About two nights ago I actually slept through the night in my own bed with only a few coughing fits. No one else caught my bug, which is a good thing, but this adds to the mystery of the pesky virus. I would rest easier if I could put a name on the infection. Today back in the US: I will dare to play to tennis. I had dreamed of tennis in the Carpathian valley, but didn't get to lace up my tennies even once.

At Martin's grocery store today I rode the wave of local celebrity. I thought people were glancing my way and growing charged by my electric presence. Until checkers, stock guys, and shoppers started a litany of "Hey, Coach," and "Hello, Digger." We got our carts. "I enjoyed your book, Coach." In the normal flow of commerce we headed toward the bakery and deli section. Near the hot soup buffet he gestured me ahead of him. I'll admit, I had to come home and google him to be sure of his fame: Digger Phelps, former Notre Dame basketball coach being a key aspect of his pedigree. He even has his own Wikipedia page. I love South Bend. I love that coaches move here to mold young athletes and then stay on in the community.

Last night we got another wave of local cool. Squirm Orchestra provided live music to accompany a series of short films from European stop-motion masters. The event was part of the Vickers Theatre Sound of Silents Film Festival. A friend of ours was in the band and let us know of the event. After the show and a few rounds of beer and reubens at Nelson's Pub, we joined the band and groupies for a swim in our skivvies at a pool in a primordial forest. Unplanned. Hot tubs, physics conversations between groupies, and talk of touring adventures in New York and Detroit. Why don't we swim in a stranger's pool at midnight more often?

Observations on the Road

I must be recovering from my as yet unidentified illness (strep? virus? something altogether more sinister?) because I can finally sit down and face a keyboard with an ounce, albeit exactly one ounce, of enthusiasm. The boys have been whisked away to a cabin in the mountains for an evening of cool mountain air. It is just me and the laptop with our newly acquired wireless connection, which a neighbor has generously allowed us to filch.

Things I have learned/observed on this foray:

1. Do not allow your Italian hotel to do your laundry, especially without even looking at the price list. 5 euros for a pair of skivvies. Not worth it. Another 6 euros for a "sweater" i.e. a t-shirt. Lesson learned.

2. Italian woman are advised to drink one glass of wine per day after the first trimester. One woman was told that she was putting her baby at risk if she didn't drink red wine because you can't get the same health benefits from any other source. American women are forbidden to drink any alcohol.

3. If you thought you were shocked when the six-year-old gypsy boy asked for your half-eaten package of crackers, wait three minutes. In that time he will have fended off his little sister and crammed all the crackers in his mouth. Then he will return and beg for the half-consumed bottle of bodza soda. I didn't give him my soda. I was horrified. Is it acceptable to allow a child to drink from a bottle that had my germs and spit? (Every year I have relearn how to live in a city with children for whom begging for my snacks is considered acceptable--to both the child and the society that tacitly allows it.)

4. Air conditioning is good. Even though not everyone here shares this opinion (see note in number 6 regarding cold water, tiles). And in fact I abhor the abuse of stale frigid air in the States. Yet this past week and a half has been unbearably hot AND I had a fever. I have spent entire days languishing in my undies trying to catch a breeze. Air conditioning is good. All things in moderation.

5. Romanian medical care is scary for me. Okay, medical care in a foreign land is always nerve-racking. I have a throat infection of some kind. We go the doctor (I won't mention the line or the envelope of cash) who can't take a throat culture because I ate crackers. (Is that the case in the US?) Besides they only take cultures before 10:00 am and not to mention that it would then have to be transported to the hospital in the oppressive heat. In the meantime, the doctor prescribes something to soothe my throat. When L. goes to the pharmacy, the ladies say "Oh, we only give this with a doctor's prescription....use this instead." And he bought what they recommended. Note: we had a doctor's prescription. (And the lozenges are manufactured in Bombay, a city whose fantastic lack of public hygiene is central to the book I am reading, Maximum City by Suketu Mehta.)

So, the next day we go to the hospital. Downstairs there are hordes, those exiting press cotton onto their open wounds where blood was drawn, and it costs 2 lei (less than one dollar) for the test. Upstairs there is no line and it costs 13 lei (roughly four dollars). We go upstairs. I had been instructed: no food, no brushing of the teeth. After a rough night of mouth-breathing and coughing, my breath had its own zip code. It was 8 am. The woman gagged me. It is Tuesday. If negative, they will know by Wednesday. If positive for strep, it will be Thursday or Friday. Did I mention the peeling paint, the windows propped open on chairs, the dust, the crowds?


6. In Transylvania common knowledge dictates that you must NOT drink cold water or you may catch a cold or make your cold worse. (You also can't walk barefoot on tile, even in a freakish heat wave, for fear of catching a cold.) In my mothering, I was given ICE CREAM when my throat was raw and swollen. I have to bypass Grandma and the kindly neighbor lady to sneak a glass of chilled water from the fridge. Where are my saltines? Where is the 7 UP? Where is my vanilla ice cream?

7. Transylvania lacks a restaurant culture. Home cooking is supreme. (I miss salad. I miss tall, cold glasses of 2% milk.)

8. They iron underwear. It is not a fetish. It is because all the clothes are dried on the line. They dry into hard lines that must be ironed. Even the undies. (I haven't worn several items of clothing that I brought because I don't have the heart to request their ironing, which leads me to number 9....

9. Hired domestic help is not an option. We couldn't make it on our own here. The massive amounts of time it takes to shop, cook, clean, iron, and make order in the house overwhelm us. Yet I am still shy about it. Hence, the unused clothing I carted all the way here.

10. Language is personality. Or, rather, lack of language is lack of personality. I glow in English. I flounder and sulk in Hungarian. I understand most of what I hear, when I try. Now I need to produce in a second tongue.

If I had the energy to go back and reread some of my former entries while traveling in Romania, I would surely find that I repeat myself. Yet, this is part of the lessons learned. We have to relearn them.

Csikszereda

We arrived by overnight train to Csikszereda. The train seems to be leaving earlier and earlier from Budapest each year. This time we left Budapest at 3:30 pm and arrived here at roughly 4:30 am. It is pity that we arrive before the sunrise. I used to covet the last 45 minutes on the train when the view from the train was spectacular despite my sleep/caffeine deprived brain: all hills, fog, green pastures, shephard's huts, gypsy settlements, and forest.

If you have read of my travels here in Transylvania, then you may be aquainted with my tendency to succumb to the somnolent powers of the mountain air and fresh mineral waters. This Kansas girl fills her lungs with crisp, cold air (yes, even in July) and it plum tuckers me out. The naps here are first rate.

Ate stuffed peppers, drank mineral water, drank bodza, saw Bodza the dog (named after the drink), ate the local cheese, took a nap, strolled the city. I am in the husband's hometown thick of it.

I am reading Catcher in the Rye, I believe for the first time. Very caustic. And very scary when traveling with an 11 year-old boy soon to be a full fledged teen fed up with all us phonies. I finished Peace Like A River by Leif Enger while in transit and also Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham, the latter being a real jewel. That Cunningham rocks my world.

Not much else to write here. But I am writing, which feels good. Although the air is rank and smoky in this internet cafe filled with gamers. Alas. No more cushy wireless internet connections for a while. If I want to go online, I must actually leave the apartment and head into the city center and hang with the local boys.

For a look into a local expat's blog perspective on this town:
http://szekely.blogspot.com/

(There are some good recent photos about town.)

Sardinia, Rome then Budapest

We are eleven days into our summer travels. I should have written much sooner. We had internet connections sporadically, but I have been lazy. It is so easy to relinquish all writerly urges to the hot summer sun. And the sun has been relentless. Yes, even I--she of the 75 spf--have a tan line now thanks to the hours spent on the beach and strolling the sunny streets of Sardinia and Rome.

We flew into Rome and immediately caught a connection to Sardinia. All three of us had separate cities of origin. Nonetheless, they managed to lose all of our luggage. Thus began some frantic shopping trips for overpriced undies and bathing suits in the town of Pula. Luckily, all of our luggage had arrived the day before we were set to return to Rome. Sardinia was beautiful and even I swam in the warm waters. (I hate being cold.) L. had a conference and was busy in the days. D. and I swam, read, ate pasta, swam, read, ate pasta, and of course developed the habit our afternoon siesta and dinner at ten pm. By the time we left Italy, we had had the art of the siesta mastered. There was one day in Rome that I required two siestas.

On last Friday we headed to Rome. I hadn't been to Rome in ten years and it had been twelve years since I lived there as a student. I was eager and nervous to see how my imagination would compare to the city of today. It was a thrill to be back on the cobblestones.

The historic center, where we stayed in the Hotel Tiziano, has exploded with stores and restaurants. As a student in Rome, I tended to stay out of shops and restaurants and so maybe I hadn't noticed their abundance before. Yet I think there are more stores than ever before--the streets were absolutely packed with people, many of whom were tourists of course. We hit all of my former haunts--Pascucci's, L'insalata Rica, Cafe San Eustachio, Cartoleria Pantheon, as well as visited the Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Vatican Museum, Saint Peter's, the Forum and the Colloseum. We ate pizza or pasta or both for just about every meal. We drank smooth frulatti for energy. And the the gelato. . . Della Palma and Giolitti, to mention the best. . . is dreamy and so much yummier in the shade on a hot summer day. Our favorite flavors: green apple, orange, creme, banana. The chocolates were good, but the fruit flavors exploded in our mouths.

Let's see, my fellow Rome program students might appreciate the following: we rode bus 64 to the Vatican (new buses, less oogy), we sank to Delfino's on Sunday in a fit of hunger and tiredness, we ate pizza at that little place near the Campo D'Fiori, many of the same faces are working at Pascucci and the Tiziano (which did give us a special rate as a former SMCer on the program), and the room we stayed in at the Tiziano was gorgeous and did not resemble our former student rooms.

These days I am caffeine and alchohol free. Hard to imagine, right? Even more of a challenge in the land of espresso and vino. I was in Italy. I indulged in one caffeinated espresso in Rome at San Eustachio. It was a chemical orgasm. The froth. The color. The texture. I inhaled deeply from L.'s red wine at dinner one night. It was a posh, cheap, and traditional place near the Spanish Steps. And yes, all three of those adjectives as suggested by a Roman friend were accurate. The wine smelled rich and vibrant. I ate pesto three times. I never did find a linguine al limone though, which is a pity.

Dani tried his first cappuccino. We picked Pascucci's for the event. He hated it of course. Never got past the foam. But he has his first cappuccino in Rome and that is pretty cool.

These are random thoughts and recollections. It is the best I can do as I squeeze in this entry from my hotel room in Budapest. Thankfully it has been rainy here an cool. We leave this afternoon on the overnight train to Transylvania, where we will spend the remainder of our summer trip at home with family. Tennis courts here I come. Home cooking and long naps and Hungarian lessons and afternoons writing and spending time with friends, here I come. Summer is good, very good. Never mind that when we return to the real world, we still need to find an apartment in a new city halfway across the country and start an entirely new era in our lives. There will be time to worry about all that after vacation.

Transition

Function: noun

1 a : passage from one state, stage, subject, or place to another : CHANGE b : a movement, development, or evolution from one form, stage, or style to another

2 a : a musical modulation b : a musical passage leading from one section of a piece to another

3 : an abrupt change in energy state or level (as of an atomic nucleus or a molecule) usually accompanied by loss or gain of a single quantum of energy

This week's personal transition is a number 3 according to Merriam-Webster. Tuesday was my last day of work at my high school, where I taught English to seniors this past year. This is my fourth year at my first high school teaching job (although it was only my third year teaching due to a leave of absence last year). Teaching is a full contact sport. When summer starts, there is an abrupt change from full energy 6 am starts to days that loom with no bells to govern when to eat or move between classes. Suddenly, the abundance of time weighs me down.

My colleagues feted my resignation with flowers and short stacks at a local pancake house before we went to work and finished our packing and grades for the year. I was finished with all my tasks by noon. So I went shopping. I don't enjoy shopping as a habit. Yet it was soothing to buy our household an expensive, razor sharp 8-inch knife. I also bought an oven thermometer for our trip to Transylvania this summer, where I hope to conjure American chocolate chip cookies from a gas stove. I dropped into a salon and treated myself to an impromptu pedicure. My toes are now buffed and bearing a shade called something like "A Taste of India." Then I was home by three o'clock with NOTHING to do. My husband wouldn't be home for hours. The house was clean. Oprah was a rerun.

So I ate a pint of Ben & Jerry's and fell into a three-hour coma with the soft blare of the television on the edge of my dreamless sleep.

Currently I am still in a state of loss. One negative quantum.

I do have many tasks to accomplish: writing, editing my book, finding an apartment in Boston, cleaning my toilet, responding to all those wonderful emails I never have time to fully address, visiting the doctor to diagnose the weird lump in my arm (he told me to come back in two weeks), feeling guilty about not working out, picking up the dry cleaning, hanging my new painting, "ism" by Scott Hatt (my very first painting!), playing tennis with my husband, reading the stacks of books that have been patiently waiting for me for months, etc. It will take a gain in quantum energy to transition into this new summer self.

I have temporarily banned Ben & Jerry's from our household.

In the meantime, my new kitchen knife slices through red bell peppers and broccoli with barely a shrug of my shoulder, no wrist action needed at all. What is more risky in times of abrupt change? Ben & Jerry's or a new kitchen knife? At least I'll be getting my daily dose of fresh vegetables.

Guest Writer: Lovella Kelley

The following piece is from my first guest writer, Lovella Kelley, who also happens to be my mother. Enjoy!

SELL MY UNDERWEAR?

I recently received one of those pass-it-on surveys by way of cyberspace and one of the questions was: What are you most afraid of? (For some reason, I actually did not delete this one as I usually do with all those chain letter things) The answer to that is- I am afraid that someone will sell my underwear in an estate sale after I die. Now, with a statement like this, you need to look at the bottom line. Actually, though this seems rather surface, there is much to be said about the bottom line. The bottom line is- I don’t want to get old and die, at least not for a long time. At 64, it is always a mystery about how long that time will be.

A few years ago, we had a neighbor whom we were really fond of. She was lively, generous, and fun to be around. When she died, we had already moved from the neighborhood. Her husband lived a year or so longer and then he died and guess what? The heirs (they had no children) had an estate sale. I went. My friend was someone special. When I saw, laid out on tables, gifts that I had given her and things that meant so much to her, with an ambiguous price tag, I felt sick. Is this estate sale all that is left? Someone sorting through your life and putting a price on each item? Selling your most precious things in life on a long, narrow table with unknown greedy people picking away for the best price for what, let’s face it, is mostly junk to anyone other than the owner, was to me very sad. Not only that, when not everything sells, they run a hot sale and put all you can get in a bag for one dollar.

I look around my home and see things that are wonderful memories of living: love, travel, history, and a great life with lots of family and friends and I wonder what to do. A family member says get rid of all that stuff, you don’t need it. I actually enjoy looking at reminders of other days and other times, and I am not dead yet, which means I continue to enjoy just looking at them and remembering who gave me the blue dolphin and the Nutcracker and the old chiming clock on the mantle. Sometimes I think they are pleasurable to look at even with a layer of dust on them. That tends to remind me that I do not have to dust them any more to enjoy their presence.

And so, do I spend my last years sorting and getting rid of my JUNK that I enjoy or do I just dump it all because I don’t need it and, after all, I am going to die sometime and then who does what with what? I contend that I do need it. I do understand that there are some who don’t want or need reminders of other days sitting around the house. When (hopefully, if) I have to move from my home into a single room at some nursing care facility, it is time enough to dump. The same family member says to that, The kids will have to sort it all out. Well, maybe so, but I think that is part of giving up a loved one and moving on without them. Maybe I will sort and label and say, dump this, treasure this. At least, that will make their chore a little easier. Maybe something in my treasures that means a lot to me will also mean something to someone else in my large extended family. If my junk is sorted and labeled, I can continue to enjoy the things I treasure while I put the sorted things into boxes to save for someone else. For instance, due to enlarged knuckles and other physical ailments, I don’t use much of the jewelry I have accumulated over these many years. I have given some away already to be enjoyed. Last week, I went through it piece by piece, put it all into little bags, and stored it on a shelf for my family to enjoy picking out the things they have treasured with me- in due time, of course.. The next morning, I was in the ER with an erratic very rapid heart beat. Now, I am thinking, all that sorting and making decisions is enough to do me in for good even sooner than I ever anticipated. In which case, sorting and labeling becomes a moot issue.

If no one wants what is left after I sort, dump, and die, please just give it away or throw it in the trash. But don’t put a price tag on my memories. And do not put my underwear on a long, narrow table with a price on it. Actually, most of it probably won’t fit anyone else anyway (not to mention there may be holes in most of them) and my undies are not desirable since the modern day thong (we used that word in reference to what is now foot covering called flip-flops) undies are not part of my wardrobe. Victoria’s Secret never fit me so well. So there! You can’t sell my underwear because it is old-fashioned and if you do, I will haunt you for the rest of your shopping days! Oh, by the way, you don’t have to look in my socks or old envelopes or books or underwear drawers for hidden money or other treasures. It would have been too easy to forget where it was. I have it all in a nice bankbook that I can keep track of it and remember where I have put it, usually. And everything else is sorted and labeled! One more thing, it is forbidden to include my 1960 picture with my obit!

Back in the Back Bay

I arrived in Boston late last night and hit the road this morning on a hunt for the perfect apartment--which is determined by a combination of gut emotional response (see the elegant Japanese screen! The granite counter tops are so shiny!) and geographical calculations--proximity to T stops and grocery stores. Thus far I am a little bit in love with a place near Coolidge Corner. But I have been know to be fickle. I do like my real estate agents--can we be friends later? Or is that just awkward?

I suppose we should rent a place now that our perfect house in South Bend has sold or at least the sale is pending. Real Estate makes abstract decisions real, really real. Let's Move to Boston! becomes OH! There goes our bungalow to strangers! (who, at least, are desperately in love and she is an architect).

The school year is mostly finished--my senior English students finished two days earlier than the underclassman. We said our goodbyes. I got a few handwritten thank you notes, one or two "See ya later and oh yeah, Thanks" and one heartfelt sought-me-out to say goodbye. Mostly they checked out months ago--somewhere after prom or their senior project presentations. We have two more professional days next week with meetings and time to clean out our desks and tear down classroom posters. How do I feel about the end of my career at my first high school teaching job? Mixed. Summer is always good; knowing that I won't return is not so good. Not knowing what is next....more teaching, scholarly work, fiction writing, tiny tots.....requires deep breathing and self-permission to indulge in a berry berry muffin with my afternoon tea.

(The guy next to me in the cafe is named Suzanne and he is expounding about why zebras were never domesticated. Apparently they are quite vicious. There you go.)

Tomorrow is another day hitting the streets for an apartment. Then I fly home in time for our Saturday trip to the Farmers Market (where does the apostrophe go? they don't use one, I swear). Sunday is high school graduation. Monday back to work. Tuesday will be a half day at work. Then official summer. Time to write!

Writerly Quote of the Day

"Sit down, and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it."

--Colette

Read any good books?

Check out the reading recommendations for their recent favorites by these authors (see strangely disembodied floating heads above) and many more (including Stephen King and Elizabeth Gilbert among others) from the New York Times Sunday Book Review:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/books/review/Survey-t.html#


Pictured above from top left, Nora Ephron, Dave Eggers,
Ursula K. Le Guin, Jonathan Safran Foer,
Edwidge Danticat, Gary Shteyngart, Kathryn Harrison, Jeffrey Eugenides.

Swan Lake

A scene from a Chinese version of "Swan Lake," by the Guangdong Military Acrobatic Troupe, featuring Wu Zhengdan and Wei Baohua.

An amazing 48 seconds.

http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=3f5112778b7fa7051ee5b20dd6b0aecb7164037f

15 Sentence Portrait

Starlight White

We had been sitting on the unforgiving plank seat of the picnic table for a heart-to-heart when my dad scooped me up and held me, my spindly spine drawing a neat line down his chest. The dusk light turned my fingertips faintly yellow, the color of pollen too stubborn to be washed off in the bath. My stomach was a hard chasm and my throat thick with the warm milk that was supposed to have put me to sleep. Tomorrow was the first day of school and my fingers flexed like a basketball player miming a free-throw shot, ready and nervous to press my freshly sharpened pencils into the mysterious shapes of the ABCs.

All summer I had waited, planned, and dreamed about tomorrow, but not any tomorrow, tomorrow’s tomorrow: it was the evening before my first day of kindergarten at Prairie Hills elementary school. I had to ride the bus alone. My red and black backpack was packed with Big Chief paper and a box of tissues for the classroom. I wanted to be new like my new supplies, a brand new grown up girl instead of the little girl who stayed at home with her mother while the big kids went to school.

My dad pointed toward the lights at the edge of the prairie grass. We watched the fireflies flit freely near the lawn’s limit. My Dad, who must have sat here with his other three daughters and maybe even my brother, breathed gently into my ear. The taste of mint lingered in the air as I absentmindedly ran my tongue across my freshly scrubbed teeth. The stars were cool pinpricks behind my eyes.

Dad told me, “Just scream them out.” My little-girl lips opened wide in a high pitched scream and as the butterfly wings raced toward the stars, soft traces of their wings gathered in the creases of my smile—the starlight white smile I would give the next morning for my new teacher, Mrs. Drew.

(with thanks to Ms.Nic.)

Ted Kooser and Me

Ted Kooser
(click on image to enlarge)

Last night we managed to find our way to the Dowagiac Fine Arts Festival to listen to Ted Kooser read his poems. We were running late, of course. It was only our second trip to Dowagiac and we were unsure of the way. Luckily we had my new favorite toy: a gps device. It shows and tells you where to go. I love pushing its buttons. L. finally had to suggest I might want to enjoy the lovely scenery instead of the virtual fields and lakes.

We had tickets dead center and about halfway back from the podium in the quite posh Dowagiac Central Middle School. Junior High never looked so good.

Ted Kooser turns me on. Wait. Ted Kooser's poetry turns me on. But it is him too. His softly angled face full of stories, ready for a joke, eyes and hands eager to get outside with his notebook calms me into a readiness to gaze into his poems and wait for the pressure of his elegant verse to set off little explosions under my skin.

He is one of those poets who have that power to compel me to pay attention. To observe. To listen. He is not flashy or aggressive. He doesn't demand attention. I just find myself turned inside out when listening to his poems. If he asked me about my deepest secrets, I would tell him with comfort. One of those types.

I am sure not everyone feels this way about Ted. But maybe not.

Maybe it is because I am from Kansas and he is from Nebraska.

L. and I were two of the youngest audience members in the sizable crowd. What an honor. What a shame that more young people (by young, I am thinking 40 or under) didn't come out to hear these words simply spoken with such delight and power.

He read two of my favorites "Beaded Purse" and "Tattoo." I heard "A Washing of Hands" in a new way. He also read a poem about a couple splitting a roast beef sandwich. I can't find it in my copy of "Delights and Shadows", his 2004 book of poems. I want a copy of that poem. Please let me know if you know it.

He read one poem that he had composed that morning. It was a portrait or "snapshot" poem he had written called "Will Work for Food" and depicted a person living in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Kooser makes it his habit to write every morning from 4:30 - 7:00. For something like 30 years he sold insurance and had to find a time to write. After serving as poet laureate of the United States two times, he nevertheless maintains his morning writing routine.

Kooser's poetry starts in observation. He sees insects. He sees his wife washing her hands. He sees stories. He sees humor and pathos. He sees strangers. His poetry does not start in the depths of the Bodleian stacks tangled in linguistic theory. You do not need to read Dante in the original or be able to define "trochaic" to understand and find pleasure in his words. You do not need a PhD. You need to be human. You would be surprised that many are unsure about how to meet this qualification.

Ted Kooser’s poems give me pleasure. They don’t stretch my vocabulary or sting my political correctness. They don’t spur me on to political revolution or social activism. They make me aware of the delicate pleasure of being alive and call me to see the world, really see it. This is a welcome reminder for a girl who gives into the tempation of pushing buttons on a tiny handheld gps device screen instead if seeing the landscape in front of her eyes.

A few Kooser poems:

Selecting A Reader

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.



Tattoo

What once was meant to be a statement—
a dripping dagger held in the fist
of a shuddering heart—is now just a bruise
on a bony old shoulder, the spot
where vanity once punched him hard
and the ache lingered on. He looks like
someone you had to reckon with,
strong as a stallion, fast and ornery,
but on this chilly morning, as he walks
between the tables at a yard sale
with the sleeves of his tight black T-shirt
rolled up to show us who he was,
he is only another old man, picking up
broken tools and putting them back,
his heart gone soft and blue with stories.

Links:

Ted Kooser's Official Site:
http://www.tedkooser.com/

A list of his published works:

http://www.tedkooser.com/works.html

Weekly Column: American Life in Poetry:

http://www.americanlifeinpoetry.org/

Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce

No, Really, It Was Tough: 4 People, 80 Martinis

All you need to know about the Martini and how to pick your gin:

Spirits of The Times

No, Really, It Was Tough: 4 People, 80 Martinis

By ERIC ASIMOV

Published: May 2, 2007

The Times tasting panel sorts out which gins produce classic martinis, which add welcome nuances and which really ought to seek another line of cocktail.

Pilobolus: A Performance Merging Dance and Biology

http://www.ted.com/talks/pilobolus_perform_symbiosis

Married Thoughts

I thought my mother had taken a first step on the long road toward senility. She emailed a few days ago and then followed up with a call to congratulate me on the first anniversary of my marriage. I was sure that this milestone was April 28th.

A few weeks ago it occurred to me that I still had not completed the dinnerware set on my wedding registry. We had received five settings and I had been taking my sweet time to contemplate whether or not to complete the set or....that was the problem, what was I supposed to do with only five settings? I thought that I had one year to fulfill our registry and receive a 10% discount.

At a certain moment in the past month my brain convinced itself that I still had weeks to make the final porcelain plunge--a sizable chunk of change. April 28th sounded right, felt right. I knew we had the wedding at the end of April.

My husband of now a year plus had publicly declared at the moment we set the date for our wedding that our anniversary would be celebrated on Easter each year. This from a man who proposed on New Year's Eve for obvious economy of memory. Of course I am having none of his desire to conflate public and private party excuses. Perhaps his insistence on Easter as our anniversary warped my own memory.

It didn't help that I picked out and purchased a new necklace for myself in honor of our anniversary three (long) weeks ago while in Budapest. I had the nice lady gift wrap it, of course.

I read my mother's email fully convinced that she had jumped the gun. When she called on the afternoon of the 21st, I politely if bemusedly thanked her for her sincere well-wishes.

A few hours later, as I was sorting bills, I impulsively riffled through my papers and consulted our marriage certificate. There it was: April 21st. I had forgotten the date of my FIRST wedding anniversary.

I decided to have a cup of coffee to contemplate the situation. Midcup I realized that my 10% wedding registry discount was on the line. After several calls, it was determined that the discount was valid for six months only after all. So I am stranded with five place settings. The good news is that they keep wedding registries active forever to better assist you in the pursuit of your wedding dinnerware dreams.

What to conclude? I forgot the date of our wedding nary a year after the event. The only possible conclusion is this: we celebrate our marriage every day and so the official calendar date was clearly anticlimactic. He did bring home roses. And we did pop open a bottle of bubbly and use our wedding flutes. But I had on my sweatpants. And we were in bed, asleep by ten pm.

One year wed, but nearly ten years of shared lives and mutually forgotten anniversaries. A good start.

Looking for the Next Big Thing

Here is is the online version of Notre Dame Magazine's
profile of Prof. Barabasi.

http://www.nd.edu/~ndmag/sp2007/keiger.html

Enjoy!

Writerly Quotes of the Day

"People's dreams are made out of what they do all day. The same way a dog that runs after rabbits will dream of rabbits. It's what you do that makes your soul, not the other way around."

--Barbara Kingsolver



"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."

--J.K. Rowling

Kafka on the Shore--What do YOU think?

The flight home was uneventful except for the lackluster food on the plane, which was an unfortunate event. On the plane ride I finished re-reading Kafka on the Shore for this month's book club. It is my selection and so I am in charge of the discussion. If you have read it, leave a comment on on this entry for our group to ponder. I am sure that you must have a reaction to its strange world of talking cats and time-dream travel, not to mention steaming udon noodles and bleeding (cat) hearts.

Friday Night in Budapest

Fish Soup at our favorite little place. Tram to the MU Theater. T.E.S.T--a modern dance performed by seven women. The Tram in the wrong direction. A spontaneous choice to get off and go to the New York Cafe, which was recently remodeled. It is stunning--all gilded walls and smart waiters. Our two cakes were priced to match the decor, probably the most expensive cakes in Budapest. But they were very, very good. And the delicous news is that this cafe is open until midnight, filling a crucial time slot for those late night cake cravings. (See the below description from http://www.talkingcities.co.uk.)

Today: Lunch with friends. Dinner with friends. Tomorrow we fly out before the crack of dawn. Back to the States. Back to work. Alas.

New York Café (New York Kávéház)

VII. Erzsébet körút 9-11
Previously shrouded under scaffolding and a dirty black exterior, visitors 'not in the know' would simply pass by the New York Kávéház without discovering the wonderfully lavish neo-Baroque interior of this late 19th-century building. Unfortunately, the café, which was once the haunt of Budapest's most famous poets and playwrights, was rammed unceremoniously by a Russian tank during the 1956 uprising (it also suffered significant bomb damage during WWII). Until recently the resultant structural damage was deemed too costly to repair.

All that changed, however, following the acquisition of the New York Palace (in which the café is housed) by Italian hotel group Boscolo. Having spent in excess of 8 Billion HUF on restoration work alone, the building has now been transformed into a luxury 235 room, five star hotel.