music and march

New favorite music: Greg Laswell

Heard of him via Collin via Will Clark. I'm listening to his album "Three Flights from Alto Nido." Good driving music and lightly reflective lyrics.

Also, Mat Kearney. Loooove him.

March should be exciting. Staying with some of Hannah's friends (they're my favorites) because their parents are gone.

Then the weekend afterwards is Sigma Chi formal in Grand Rapids. So excited! Not only do I get to see Collin, but I love spending time with him and his friends. A few of them have really become like brothers to me. Especially Dylan and Kirk. And Jerbear will join us to pre-party! Grand Rapids is the best city in the wooooorld.

After that is INDY! With Kristen, Karen, Babs, Courtney, and a very pregnant Jen. Sigh. I was just talking to Courtney tonight and I got even more excited. I do miss them a lot and wish we were closer. My heart is in the Midwest right now.

And the weather has been gorgeous. Such a provision.

So thank you, God, for March and its wonderful beginning.

another important discovery

A few days ago, I learned that Julie Powell is not the person I imagined her to be. After reading her real blog and reviews of her book "Cleaving," I can't help but be disgusted with her.

Please take my opinion with a grain of salt. A huge grain. Notice, I said that I read a "review" of her book. Also, I have not read Julie and Julia. All I knew of Julie was from the movie. And I am embarrassed to even admit this because of how hard I took the true knowledge of her.

More deeply, I hate my temptation to judge her (and others I don't know) for mistakes that anyone of us could succumb to and it is also not my job to "forgive" her. So I don't even like that these are my feelings on the subject.

The thing is, I had so much hope and delight invested in the phantom, onscreen depiction of her. And so my important discovery lies in the fact that I fantasize other people's lives and get really disappointed when reality hits. Disappointed or bitter, and at my worst self-justified. My sorrow is very self-centered. So many things wrong with this tendency.

Some other things I learned:

My tolerance for snarkiness and foul language is limited to people I already know and love. Babs or Willbaer can drop the f-bomb as much as they like and I will love them forever. Random blogs or characters in books, not so much.

Finally, I cannot give up my enchantment with the film "Julie and Julia" and so I've allowed myself a modicum of denial. From now on, when I watch it, I will pretend (knowing full well that I am wrong) that Julie Powell is actually Amy Adams.

And instead of reading the novel "Julie and Julia" (or the follow-up "Cleaving" for that matter), I will read Julia Child's "My Life in France." Maybe someone more resilient than I could pick up Julie Powell's books and remain unscathed, but I don't think I'm mature enough. If you are not convinced, you didn't read this post carefully enough.

important discovery

So after eight months of intensive cooking, I learned last night that a clove of garlic is only one section of the whole thing (i.e. the "bulb")

That explains so much.

Struggling with contentment today.

"Wherever you are, be all there." - Jim Elliot

This keeps coming to mind and I'm trying.

final list

“And Yet” - Czeslaw Milosz

"Finding the Broken Man" – Scott Cairns

"Possible Answers to Prayer" - Scott Cairns

"Snowdrops" - Louise Gluck

"Love in Moonlight" - Louise Gluck

"Revelation" - Robert Frost

"We Grow Accustomed to the Dark" (419) - Emily Dickinson

"As Kingfishers Catch Fire" - Gerard Manley Hopkins

"I Wake and Feel" - Gerard Manley Hopkins

"Up-Hill" - Christina Rossetti

"A Good Cause" - Adelia Prado

Plus 2 Rilke poems, including the one I posted last time.

Honorable mentions...

“In Common” – Milosz

“End of Winter” - Gluck

"The Red Poppy" - Gluck

“Wild Iris” - Gluck

"The Silver Lilly" – Gluck

"To R.B." – Hopkins

“Land of the Holy Cross” – Prado

"The Theology of Doubt"- Cairns

"The First Spring Day" - Rossetti

What a wonderful process. I loved reading the poems over and over again, aloud to myself in my room.

In other news, snow day PLEASE on Wednesday? Also, we should start every school day at 10. I smiled bigger, tolerated more questions, and persevered in spirit much longer than usual.

snowed in with poetry

One of the high school teachers at CCA (Jesse Hake) and my friend/mentor, Christine Perrin asked me to compile a list of poems to present to CCA's senior class and basically do a workshop with them in preparation for a private reading at a local bookstore. The theme is self-disclosure and all it involves...vulnerability, trust, risk. There are only 5 seniors and the 3 of us (Jesse, Christine, and myself) will also read and reflect. So out of the canon of poems that involve self disclosure, I must choose 8.

So we p00led our most beloved resources. Christine brought Czeslaw Milosz, Scott Cairns, Emily Dickinson, and Adelia Prado. I can't live without Louise Gluck, Rilke, Hopkins, and Christina Rossetti. And why not through Frost in the mix and see if he fits?

I am excited to do this but it is so hard to choose! Thank goodness we got 16 inches of snow last night and having nowhere to go, I must stick with it and come up with a list today. I will keep you updated. I would ask for suggestions but I am afraid to throw anything else to the mix.

Here is a Rilke poem I am mulling over.

From "Sonnets to Orpheus" I.16

You, my friend, are so alone,

because...with words and pointing fingers

slowly we make the world our own,

perhaps the frailest part, most full of danger.

Who points with his finger to a smell? -

But of the powers that we dread

you feel many...you know the dead

and are frightened by the sorcerer's spell.

Look, we together must bear alway

parcel and part, like a whole at last.

It's hard to help you. Don't plant me in

your heart - for I would grow too fast.

But I'll guide my master's hand and say:

Here. This is Esau in his skin.

I don't know what's making me so afraid

tiny cloud over my head

heavy and gray with a hint of dread

I don't like to feel this way

take me back to a window seat

with clouds beneath my feet

from this one place I can't see very far

in this one moment I'm square in the dark

these are the things I will trust in my heart

you can see something else

something else

Sara Groves

There is more than one person in my life I think of, at the end there. "You can see something else." Deep, irrational insecurity is isolating. In those moments, we must learn to believe one another.