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in a move to make my life cleaner: sorry, though, to clutter up yours! this is the last shift, I promise. tumblr has been good to me, really—I’m not one for technology, but wordpress is just this fantastically good use of web space. my father and elisabeth both use it, too, so maybe I just subconsciously feel the family peer pressure (yes: we all blog). off to panama city! thanks for being wonderful. ps: you can leave comments on wordpress, so get on that.
the next day
I believe in touch; Sarah Morris says that in order to feel loved you must be touched five times a day, and ever since she said that I find myself unconsciously counting—one, two, three—four—five—and it is true, that these small touches are significant. I know and recognize them, filing them into categories in my mind: my mother’s soft lotion touch, my sister’s backrub, the way Lily curls her baby fingers around my adult ones; the way my friends reach for my hands in the theater or on the street; how sometimes the act is so effortless we do not realize we are holding hands until we look down and see our hands as companions. I value the passing intimacy of a smile from a stranger and the touch of people who do not need long friendship to rest their hand on my head or shoulder and how that means even more because they reach out and I reach out and together, we find confidence in our human need, touch for touch, skin for skin. The air has been holding rain for days now; tense with thunderstorms. Hannah made a three-layer chocolate cake yesterday; the richest, heaviest cake I’d ever tasted, and this is how the air feels—pregnant, dense as a mountain chocolate cake with a spirit that makes the trees bristle and restless. Am now bidding adieu to the internet and hello to the marbled columns of Wilson Library. They say you can’t eat in here. Don’t worry; you can. there is great need for change in this world, and indeed, it is broken. even in this urban, sheltered world of chapel hill—where term papers, late nights studying for exams and the carolina heat are our easiest provokers—it is not easy to forget this. we are confronted by it when we read the senate bill 1070 and are gripped with the privileged life we lead or look at pictures of the oil spill in the gulf of mexico to realize at what price our unsustainable, insatiable need for energy comes at. racial profiling, bruises on the ocean. simply walking down franklin street and conversing with a homeless man is enough to jolt me out of my small world and realize how complicated this brokenness is, and how powerless I feel as to what a good response, a good dialogue about homelessness should look like. but, friends, this is what I find hope in: that I have stayed up past two the past three nights, engaged in dialogue with my best friends—over drinks in the warmth of my light-spotted room, at a folk concert, at cosmic, at picnic tables, in the breezeway between davis library and the union—about these very things. to understand that I am at a university surrounded by others passionate about the very same issues, to understand that it is a privilege to be at this school but that with such great privilege comes great responsibility, to enjoy and soak in that wonderful learning and apply it to the world—this is where I see hope. we fully have the capacity to be broken, but we also fully have the capacity to change; and that is not something that is of us, but of a higher power, of love, of Christ. I don’t know what the appropriate response to homelessness always is, or immigration, or the energy crisis; or how to love people well. but I am grateful for a community where these questions are fostered and friends who will stay up half the night asking these questions with you and encouraging you towards change and the pursuit of Christ. scott and I discussed this the other night; that we came into this year fully sure of who we were and where our place in this world was, and that we have grown, but that that growth has taken us into a place where we do not know who we are or what our place fully is. but I like this; I am grateful to be at this place of question and prayer, this discussion of brokenness and pointing towards truth in the hours after twelve in the cool of the north carolina night. song of the week: bon iver, a cover of “simple man” and here, a shoutout deserves to go to brendan, not pronounced branden, o’boyle. for lending me his sleeping bag for something like two months, for being gracious about ambigous text messages, for telling me to write and for being an altogether wonderful friend. happy birthday, asia morris! you are a remarkable woman with a remarkable nose ring.
saturday
my church has a ministry of repairing widow’s homes in the community; today was another work day. I biked down to miss f’s house this morning and we sat on her grandson’s porch as people painted and cleaned and hammered on the roof beside. she instructed, I listened and we laughed a lot and talked about pies and plants and dr. oz from the oprah show, whom we both really like. across the street were two homes; one, a beautiful, abandoned farmhouse, the other a smaller, well-kept house. “it’s beautiful grounds.” miss f told me ”let’s walk around the house.” we walked behind the abandoned house, amid the weeds and the broken screen door the groundhogs made a home in—pushing aside the thick clover to try to find one with four leaves (no luck; I don’t have the gift), inspecting the weathered tree that will one day produce yellow pears; admiring the wiry, white azalea bushes that have grown up wild and uncut. —before this, though, we passed by the well-kept house. miss f smiled as the neighbor came out; he, maybe twenty with piercings all over; miss f, just at eighty years. the boy came out in pajama pants, rubbing his eyes. “how you doing?” miss f asked. she looked happy, delighted at this act of chatting over white fences on a saturday morning—chatting over fences, as all saturday’s in the world are meant to be spent. ”good morning.” he said. “I’m doing really good. I’ve been awake for five minutes.” I squatted to put my hands through the fence and pet one of the three dogs; black, large, with long hair and a tail that swept the grass. “that’s josie.” the boy said, and then reached his hand over the fence towards me. “I’m eddie.” eddie is my nickname. it’s slow to catch-on, but, at zaina’s suggestion, it’s the best one to distinguish me from the two other sarah’s in fellows, nee, the eight-hundred-thirty other sarah’s on campus. jessica says I’m not an eddie, but today, at least, I was. “I love the wisteria.” I said, which was true. I did loved the wisteria that climbed up the porch railing, winding up the roof. just as I love all wisteria and the way the purple perfume hits me when I ride t-paine to carrborro on the bike path; and how when it does, I am home, walking up the road by the barbee’s cow pasture in the springtime and at the edge of summer. eddie stepped back to show us the postage-stamp-sized yard of the well-kept house: to begin with, it was a lawn, not just grass, hemmed succinctly by the picket fence. there was an oblong, twined portion of the yard, smaller than a postage-stamp—the size of a paper clip, then?—that held three chubby green plants. “sunflowers.” “yes, sunflowers, and we planted tomatoes along the fence” —angular, by the deer antlers on the ground—“tall plants, mostly.” miss f smiled at him, and took my arm. “we’re going to look at the grounds now.” we walked back along the gravel, I in rolled-up jeans, she in a long floral dress and sweater the color of a united states map. eddie stayed on the lawn, hands still in his pajama pockets, listening to the morning, while josie the dog moved against him. —————————- I left the student union, just now at three. and for a moment, the math; three in the morning, when I came to the library at three in the afternoon and moved to the union when it closed. three to three; twelve hours and ten pages that aren’t really that good and all run together. I walked home in the rain and bluster and wet pansies and pools of orange lamp-light; with the birds chirping in a way that defied nature. but this is penance for what should have happened weeks ago; and tommorrow will be sleep and more rain, an empty dining hall and mentally preparing for two more days and twelve more pages. not far. I woke up this afternoon with my heart pounding, literally jumping away from my diaphagram. this is what x amount of coffee refills will do to you; when the caffeine swirls past your head and decides to take refuge in jittery hands and even more jittery heart palpitations. I woke up this morning and the first thing I saw was that elisabeth had blogged for the first time in three months, and it’s not quite possible to express how happy that made me. there’s something about her writing that so perfectly matches how she lives; natural and easy and kind of jumbled and full of laughter. she talked about the mayo river, and instantly I remembered that one afternoon with the boat and the muddy river and cows and soccer game that we walked for what seemed like hours to, only to find it near the foot of a mountain. and then the crazy double rainbow, and the little boy with the belly that poked out, jumping in puddles as he walked on the dirt road, and the motorcars which bumped and flew along the holes in that road. my shoe fell off; we all laughed hysterically. I am ready to know a new place, I think. and in august, I will be ready to return here, but for now—the prospect of two new continents; being able to settle in this one city and know it and find a routine and begin to recognize faces around it—delights me. only because this has got to be the most glorious something I’ve seen all day. artist alberto seveso
here is a profound problem:
on the course registration system—not the world’s most seamless system—I am currently up to 55 credit hours of classes that I’ve listed as wanting to take next semester. this is, of course, not counting Spanish 203, which I will definitely be taking, or a Science with a Lab, which I will also be taking, despite my most deep and ardent desire not to. after much thought, the following is the list of academic criteria/experiences that I would like to incorporate into the next three years: rwanda (check) african studies traveling everywhere specifically in europe and also specifically patagonia and iceland food/farm/local food studies spending as much time as possible in a garden/under the sun studies american studies oral studies folklore southern studies appalachian/rural medicine/herbs arabic making everything by hand studies environmental studies international studies english/comparative literature poetry creative writing art history also art in general and: the tambourine finding a major is obviously going to be a cinch, since there is obviously one out there that incorporates all of those things. I will never be rich. ————— It also goes without saying that I will adopt a dog the moment I can. I hate to be that girl posting puppy articles, but this article makes my heart melt and than go up in wild flames of sunshine, and if you have one, the exact same scientific process will happen. LOOK AT WALTER, PLEASE.
thursday blues
there is something slightly undignifed about having a blog. blogs are usually portioned to middle-aged men who want to be professors and mothers who save coupons and seventh-grade girls who bare their souls through the medium of water photos and passive-agressive blog entries. it’s okay: sometimes I judge myself for having one, so you can, too. but by now it’s a habit. spring in chapel hill! there is a rythmn, a cadence; a soul that I have found and do not want to lose. africa is close, and I’m thrilled. but now I’m clinging to the azaleas and the afternoons on the quad where time is this pleasant, nonexistent element that slips somewhere between murphey and wilson library, hiding in a bush or behind a brick, and emerges around four together with the heavy afternoon light and chime of the bell tower. april light is a miracle, lemme tell you. when I remember to wake up alongside, it is light and spacious and fresh, and then it is remembered by the heat and the oak trees become hospitable; and then in it is evening and magical and found in pockets on the quad where the bushes and trees link arms and stretch towards something, somewhere. that’s the way it is. here is what I’m grateful for: tennessee williams and lungs and old friendships and weathered friendships and friendships that are still emerging like all those green catepillars that hang off trees. people who speak truth to me, and waffles and waitresses and older brothers. forgiveness, for my emotions are a volatile and undependable being. elton john, but wisteria, more likely. spontaneous people who play spontaneous music. prayer and communion and wine. the awakening, even when edna makes me mad. tambourines and sprawling beach porches and stars on docks. and quiet rides home where the sunset and caleb’s impeccable music taste merge together comftorably into the sand. evangeline mee, I want to live life with you following the sound of music from front porch to front porch. where you are, there will always be banjos. here is what I’m excited about: rwanda for a long, long time and in a way that I don’t really know how to measure yet. the mountains, and you, and all of that often. new sneakers. the gospel and space that I can breathe in. the farmers market and cooking and probably nina simone. so anyways, I guess what I’m saying is that I’m just very, very grateful. not because I have anything good going on, but because everything around me does. and because I learn daily that growth is this miraculous thing that happens and happens and happens and my heart moves round the board like a parcheesi piece. and that’s good, I think. ——————————————— today, waiting for my shots at the travel clinic, I flipped through the magazines. the boy beside me was clearly restless, so in an act of genuine compassion, I handed him one. “here, you can read this family circle. it’s a really good issue.” I don’t really think he thought it was s funny as I clearly did. I’m riding out on the apathy-colored wave of having shut myself in the library for the past three days; I am at Open Eye but this means nothing as far as productivity goes. Rainy nights at coffee shops are bad. Thunderstorms are one of the things that gets me most jazzed about being alive; but you pair that with a coffee shop and a three-hour night that involved not one, but two cups of coffee and not one, but two five-hour energy shots…well, this is what you get: a crash, a little unproductivity and a night of Emily Dickinson. It’s funny, because outside of coffee-shop adrenaline withdrawals, Emily Dickinson just keeps coming into my life. This semester, I mean, but also always. She’s been my favorite poet since I can remember, but I know this experience isn’t singular to me. I remember Donald Miller writing in Blue Like Jazz that falling in love with Emily Dickinson is a fundamental part of the American male’s adolescence experience; I identify, even though I’m no American male. I think that everyone identifies with Emily Dickinson because she’s just this enigma, this person in a white dress that writes everything you think, but you can’t ever pin her down or capture her or explain away her reclusivity. So that’s Emily; the woman you don’t know but can conform and shape to whatever you really need, wherever you are. Maybe this is projecting a lot on this poor woman, but that’s the way it is. My English teacher is in love with Emily Dickinson; he owns one of the two photographs that exist of Emily. Sitting in class, it isn’t hard to grasp that his Emily (despite that white dress) is an overtly sexual being. Two weeks after reading Emily Dickinson in class, tonight, Lauren sent me a novella-long article (which is quite good; you can find it here) about that poet, so here I am, thinking about her again. My Emily looked different when I was fourteen than she does now: then, she was clever and in love with trees and did really witty things with exclamation marks. The Emily I know now is kind of crazy and still in love with trees and really wise about God and afraid of God and in love with love but also terrified of intimacy. My Emily likes thunderstorms as much as I do, and can write things like this that also make you jazzed about being alive: Futile the winds And you know, maybe if you’re my English Professor or really any other literary critic in the world, this is a poem about sexual passion. But the thing about Emily is that she can apply to you even when she can’t, and in that case, that poem can apply to you when you’re sitting on a coffee shop after a really rugged couple weeks with the rain streaming pollen down windshields and the Beatles bursting out the speakers. Here! I mean, damn, she’s everywhere. PS: and I mean, sorry about taking the liberty of calling her straight-up Emily. you know. PPS: there is nothing to make you regret the thrift-shop indecision of the December Salvation Army Run 2009 like seeing someone REALLY pulling off an acid-washed mom jean skirt. that skirt should have been mine.
seventeen things I will always love passionately no matter what anybody else says:
some weekends, you have to sit down and reevaluate who you are. this may seem like a daunting task, but, in condensed form it can be done by listing seventeen things. these seventeen are things that make you wildly, shamelessly happy. here is my very brief list, very not-comprehensive, but still true list: 1. rollerskating. anywhere, anytime, on anything, with anyone…maybe not the last part. 2. kombucha. also: cheerwine. 3. goats, beekeeping (personal life goal: be a beekeeper AND a goat-keeper. also, have seven children and visit dollywood and be the sexy tambourine player in a band, although this last one seems less likely to pan out). 5. the following people that I do not know but would probably be best friends with: wendell berry, flannery o’connor, jonathan safran foer, tina fey, laura ingalls wilder, eudora welty, sufjan stevens, annie dilliard, andy samberg, virginia woolf, ira glass, john muir and m.i.a, or whatever her real name is. 6. station wagons made before 1980, paticularly when they are painted middle blue or bright red. that’s right; I’m talking to you, mr. and mrs. davidson. 8. learning to fly, tom petty. also, free falling, because it’s important not to neglect that. 9. the following: jorts, rompers, overalls, birkenstocks. 10. npr 11. canning, making bread, making granola, eating granola, looking at granola in beautiful mason jars 12. the fluorescent green of lettuce against the earth 13. YELLOW legal pads. none of that white-legal pad business 14. people who know how to add ‘z’ to the end of their words to an appropriate extent. 15. cosmic cantina 16. spectacular full moons 17. deer antlers as wall art. even though I am a vegetarian. —————— it’s a helpful exercise, this listing of seventeen things. |
