Down into the dirt

We have dandelions in our yard. Their fluffy white heads sway merrily in the breeze and new ones keep popping up out of thin air to join the party. It's the only party on our street, and I think that's what's drawing them to our house. A vicious circle.

I spent some time uprooting a couple along the house, and you would think I was trying to pull a log out of the ground. Innocent little plants, delicate leaves the size of my thumb, yet harboring thick, wormy roots that burrowed deep into the soil. Some of the tiny plants I uprooted had roots longer than the length of my hand. They dangled like worms.

I can't get out!

I was asked by a lady today how to get out of the library.

After the briefest of pauses (did I really hear that?) I told her.

Maybe I should have given her more complicated directions, sent her on a roundabout by way of the books on the 3rd and 4th floors, and a detour through the archives in the basement.

Too short

Thanks to my folks for putting up with a disordered house and even more disordered hosts. Hopefully, the next time will be more restful!

At least my library was partially up. Mom and Dad made frequent trips into that room, so it was nice to see it being used. Mom suggested setting up the library shelves in rows, rather than against the wall, for more of a library effect. I'd do it, just to see what it's like, if it weren't for the weight of books.

As always, their visits are too short.

So much depends on...

The Red Wheelbarrow

So much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

besides the white
chickens.

~William Carlos Williams

We bought a red wheelbarrow yesterday.

A new place

We've moved.

Our old place looks alien without our furniture. It's just a collection of empty rooms now. When we returned to pick up some boxes, after the movers had done their job hauling the heavy stuff, my heart lurched at the emptiness. I was homesick for that tiny 4 room apartment, with its solid wood doors and crown molding, proximity to Magee's Bakery, and view of the backyard that gave us occasional glimpses of the obese corgi (when we first saw it, we thought it was a pot-bellied pig) that lived beneath us.

Our new place is vast in comparison. I keep forgetting we have an upstairs. The eating area looks out onto the backyard and past that to the field bordering it. We have to seek each other out, rather than just call out. Pope doesn't know what to do with himself in all this space.

Marriage is never boring

While prattling on about how I'd like to get a few chickens and get some heirloom varieties of vegetables to start our garden in the back, I noticed Jon raising his eyebrows at me as he smiled that exasperating hidden smile of his.

"What?" I demanded.

He started off with a story from this morning, in which he overheard two female teachers in the copier room talking. One of them messed something up in the copier, and the other one, rather than saying, "I can fix it," instead said something soothing, "Yeah, that's happened to me, too. How frustrating." Whereas, Jon would have immediately zeroed in on how he could fix the problem, not wasting time on empathizing or affirming the other lady's feelings.

Jon continued, "So, I understand that you're just talking about chickens and veggies for the future, that you're not expecting to do it right away, but my brain is hardwired to immediately start thinking of what needs to be done in order to accomplish these things. And I can't do that. I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance."

Does anyone else have a spouse that says things like this?

Pascha

I've been trying to think of ways to verbalize why I'm so moved by Alvin Ailey's "Wade in the Water" sequence. It's almost like my experience reading R.S. Thomas' "Via Negativa"--how do you explain the way poetry reaches deep into you? I'm moved because I think of the African slaves in America and the small consolation they got from the Gospels, from the Exodus narrative. I'm moved because I think of the baptismal moment, that scary point of life where the initiate publicly declares her devotion to God. I'm moved because I think of the ecstatic joy that comes so briefly, so rarely, from those moments where one has an encounter with the 'Other'. This dance sums up all those experiences and spills it out in a blazing tangle of conflicting emotions, joy and sorrow, grief over the wrongs of history, exhilaration at being alive.

The song is based on one of many versions of the slave song. Here's one: "Wade in the Water." It's believed that this kind of song was a code of sorts that notified slaves trying to escape that they should take to water to flee their pursuers. To read a little more about Alvin Ailey's dance itself, look at pages 10 & 11 of the book Dancing Revelations, by Thomas F. DeFrantz.

In keeping with the joy exhibited by the initiates in the "Wade in the Water" dance, I wish a happy Easter to everyone. Here's an icon of the Anastasis, roughly translated as the "harrowing of hell." This is the image the Eastern Orthodox Christians associate with Easter, as compared with the images of the Crucifixion or the empty tombs that Western Christianity employs. Christ is shown in all his glory, standing on the shattered doors of Sheol, hell, or, more simply, the void of death. He is lifting Adam and Eve, the progenitors of the human race, out of death and into life. And the world was changed, for believer and unbeliever alike, for good and for worse. I would hope the good outweighs the bad, but there are plenty who would disagree. Here's a previous post of mine that some of you may appreciate.

Obsessions of a feline nature

This is Pope, who is fascinated with the ends of things (tip of the string is just barely out of the picture):

This is Bea, who is fascinated with the tops of things:

I don't have a picture of Mojo, who was fascinated with the insides of things.

Buses and tulips

Last weekend, Jon and I went to Asheville, North Carolina. Our friends have a cousin who owns a condo located in one of the many ritzy exclusive neighborhoods dotting the mountains around Asheville. Here is the view from the porch:

Jon and his buddy did some bike riding. I lounged around the condo with his wife and kids. Quite thoroughly relaxing. I knocked out a book while there, The Little Giant of Aberdeen County.

We went into Asheville twice. It's such an enjoyable little city, even if it tends towards being overwhelmingly trendy and enthusiastically hippie-ish in some enclaves. We stuck to the downtown area, near Haywood Street and Biltmore Avenue. There's tons of shops and interesting restaurants to check out. We ate at Salsa's, a Mexican Caribbean fusion place, and just about died from the deliciousness of the food. I got a wild mushroom enchilada, which came smothered in herbed goat cheese, accompanied with a spicy veggie/salsa mix (it was neither quite one nor the other), with a base of yummy black beans. Oh, if only Lexington had something similar!

We made sure to swing by Wall Street, which has some whimsical statues of cats and a rat. We didn't notice the rat until a passerby pointed it out, sneaking by on the other side of the balcony:


For dessert, we went to the Chocolate Lounge, where we each got liquid truffles, flavored with cayenne and cinnamon. After the first sip, we looked at each other and grinned. We knew we had made a good choice for dessert.

The second day we went to Asheville, Jon dropped me off and I walked around some more while he was off riding his bike close to Mt. Mitchell. I stopped in Woolworth Walk, thinking I would be politely interested in the arts and crafts exhibited therein. An hour later, I emerged, a little dazed by the incredible talent I saw. I memorized Susan Luke's name, planning to return and purchase one of her still-life paintings (the examples in the link aren't the best ones). When I saw the Double Decker Bus Cafe, I couldn't resist ducking in. The photo below is on the second floor.


This is the closest we got to the Biltmore Estate:

A very relaxing and pleasant weekend!

Jon in places

My series of Jon in restaurants in Asheville, North Carolina:

Malaprop's, bookstore

Salsa's, a Mexican Caribbean restaurant

Rosetta's Kitchen, a vegetarian restaurant

Chocolate Lounge, yummy chocolates

More photos from our trip can be found at my flickr. You'll have to dig through some other photos to get to them - can't figure out how to sort them.

One house among the rest

Here's what we've signed our life away on.

Jon is already hard at work fixing the garage up for all his stuff. There's a spare room off the dining area, a converted porch that we're setting up as the library. We're also going to plot a garden in the back.

Wars long past

Daniel Waldo, a Revolutionary War veteran. This photograph was taken in 1864, when he was 101 years old.

Isn't it amazing what you can find on the internet?

Picture found here

Jon and his bike

I think Jon is determined to cover his face with scars, emblems of the hold his bike has on him. He and his friend went out for a short ride in the North Carolina mountains, and he missed a turn (didn't see it coming). Rather than go over the side of the road (which would have been quite a drop, considering what it was winding through), he forced the back wheel to lock up and promptly fell over.

Perhaps it's an art, a useful ability to have, to force your bike to "fall over". But it always seems that, no matter how hard you try, it's the face that bears the brunt of impact. In this case, as in the previous incident (the run-in with the van), his helmet strap cut into his chin.

We decided he didn't need stitches. Instead of a band-aid, we applied super-glue. Instead of a wound, it looks like he has a deformity, a cluster of cancerous skin cells.

Making a home

I almost wish we had bought an old house that had an attic jammed full of random junk and treasures. It's one of my deepest pleasures, rooting through old things and imagining the stories behind them. Our new house is mostly bare, full of echoes, but imagine my surprise when we found that the previous owner was not returning for the things she had left behind.

Treasures:

• good clay pots--tons of them, large and small: I can already envision tomatoes and herbs
• a huge oriental rug (at least 8 by 12 feet)
• a cast iron decorative table on the deck
• flower boxes

Junk:

• 2 boxes of Christmas lights
• a child-sized foam mattress
• a beat-up basketball hoop

Dubious value:

• a multi-purpose weight machine
• eighties-style sconces (saved from the junk list because their function is useful)
• a creaky outdoor playset
  

Reversing the trend

We've bought a house.

Jon and I are still a little dazed. We look at each other sometimes and just smile (not that we don't already do that, but this is different). We have to, otherwise we'd descend into the tyranny of second-thoughts and doubts.

The other day, Jon said, "You know, for the amount of money we forked over, we could have hiked the entire Appalachian Trail" (which usually takes around six months).

And I countered, "We could have taken a long and leisurely backpacking trip around Europe."

Instead, we're rooting ourselves in Kentucky, thinking about lawn mowers, roof repairs, paint chips, gardens, a room of her own (an actual library)...

Dancing

I watched this clip from an Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre performance. I had no prior knowledge of what the dance was about, nor what the song was. Yet, I somehow grasped the meaning of this performance, and not because of any innate understanding of dance. What is it about the choreography, the costumes, the props, the dancers themselves, that opened my eyes?



I'll post my thoughts on this in a later post.

Moving away

We are about to move into a house outside of Lexington. We are ready, but even so....here is what I will miss:

• hot almond croissants from Magee's
• being able to walk to places
• Central Library with its three levels of books (the county library where we will be just doesn't compare)
• the cats sleeping in the window displays at Decoratifs
• walking past the twisted trees in Woodland Park at dusk
• seeing grungy UK students, particularly that one that walks everywhere with a flowery umbrella and one pant leg rolled up (the emblem of the fixed gear crowd)
• driving through downtown Lexington on our way home
• living amongst bungalows
• Good Foods buffet
• the lights at Triangle Park
• the old man at the YMCA who faithfully works out on the recumbent bike with all the speed of a turtle

That's all I can think of for now.

Sunday morning

"To see the world, to see ourselves in the light of the resurrection, means that Christians cannot help but discover that our language is inadequate for the task. That is why poetry is so important for the work of theology. For the poet is in an ongoing struggle to find the words necessary to say what cannot be said."
--Stanley Hauerwas, Image, issue 60.

Poetry speaks to the soul in ways that sermons and essays cannot. Why is it that R.S. Thomas' "Via Negativa" says so much in such a conservative amount of words? I got to thinking about chapel at Asbury. 3 1/2 years of attending chapel 3 times a week, and I can count on one hand the number of sermons that stuck with me. This isn't a polemic against chapel--it had its place on campus, as important for fellowship (perhaps more so) than a way to drill sermons into flighty students' heads--just a curious observation that I got more out of R.S. Thomas, Madeleine L'Engle, even Emily Dickinson, than I ever did out of sermons.

Via Negativa (by R.S. Thomas)

Why no! I never thought other than
That God is that great absence
In our lives, the empty silence
Within, the place where we go
Seeking, not in hope to
Arrive or find. He keeps the interstices
In our knowledge, the darkness
Between stars. His are the echoes
We follow, the footprints he has just
Left. We put our hands in
His side hoping to find
It warm. We look at people
And places as though he had looked
At them, too; but miss the reflection.

When I read this poem, I remember how sometimes when I go home to visit my folks, I would walk into Grandma's house, half-expecting to see Grandpa sitting in the TV room, wearing his typical plaid short-sleeve shirt and faded jeans, eating pickles while watching TV, waiting for his grandkids to burst in for a scratchy kiss (he always had a thick mustache). He has been gone for almost 16 years, but the ache of missing him remains. This poem calls up that ache, so powerful I feel as if I am at Grandma's, standing in the living room, not wanting to look into the other room because as long as I don't, I can entertain the thought that Grandpa is there.

What does missing Grandpa have to do with a poem musing on the perceived absence of God? Well, not much, besides the uncanny ability of poetry to evoke associations and summon memories, bypassing logic to touch the core of our being, using what we know to help us understand what the poem is suggesting.

Poetry is a way of saying what cannot be said.

Ugly Bat Boy

Itsy bitsy spider

Yesterday morning I woke up to a tiny spider hovering several feet above my face. I laid there, thinking it looked as though it was clambering up the molecules of air, or some invisible ladder, when it abruptly dropped a foot. I moved quicker than I thought possible, and Pope leaped into the fray.

It reminded me of a time in chapel at Asbury College. I was sitting on the main floor, with nearly two stories of open space above my head, when I noticed (along with a good chunk of the student body in the section I was in) a fat spider slowly, methodically lowering itself from the ceiling (I remind you that said ceiling was nearly two stories above). It landed on a student's shoulder several rows ahead of me (which should give you an idea of just how large said spider was, that I could spot it with my naked eye). We all watched with bated breath as someone tapped this student's other shoulder. Since it was a guy, he just casually brushed the spider off his shoulder and resumed listening to the sermon. It was rather anti-climatic, and I always wondered what would have happened if it had been a girl.