A Major Reader

(dulciebarbara)

I’m currently reading through The Best American Essays 2010 at rapid rates. I am thrilled with each essay I’ve read so far, and I was particularly smitten with the foreword by series editor Robert Atwan. His foreword introduced me to the idea of “major readers” and “minor readers,” both terms suggested in Vladimir Nabokov’s introduction to his Lectures on Literature. Nabokov writes, “Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader.”

And this idea makes sense, because as Nabokov points out, the first reading is merely the act of moving your eyes across the page from left to right and becoming acquainted with the “world” of the book. I agree with him. However. I have serious issues with being a major reader. I want to be a major reader, of course. It is one of the things that I take the most delight in and that adds so much depth and richness to my personal life. But I tend to read in circles, instead of rereading, and the list of books I’d like to read grows longer every day. So, for me being a major reader equals a major dilemma.

The only book I’ve ever reread is Jack Kerouac’s Dharma Bums. When we decided to hike in the Himalayas on our honeymoon, I decided I needed to read it again. Although it is not set in the Himalayas, it does in fact deal a lot with mountains, hiking, and more mountains. I thought it would be a good book to psyche myself up and get ready for our Annapurna circuit.

But, honestly? I have a fear of rereading. I am afraid that by rereading a book I’ve already read, I’m forfeiting time with another book I haven’t read. I know that sounds obsessive, but I am nothing if not obsessive about reading and books. (Not just books for what’s inside, but I am also seriously obsessed with books as objects, books as things.) There have been certain times in my life that I have read certain books and they have been completely of the moment for me. And there’s this idea in the back of my head that if I choose to reread a book, I’ll miss the “moment” I could have had if I had kept on reading new material.

It’s all quite melodramatic, isn’t it? I have a friend who rereads the same books over and over, and I don’t doubt that he finds something new and fresh in them each time. I do believe that great books will stand the test of a million rereads. "No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and re-read, and loved, and loved again; and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it, as a soldier can seize the weapon he needs in an armoury, or a housewife bring the spice she needs from her store." That’s John Ruskin from his lecture “Of Kings’ Treasuries” collected in “The Lamp of Memory,” which I read at the end of last year.

This is my dilemma. I’ve only so much time to commit to the act of reading (heck, to commit to anything before my time is up), and I can’t bring myself to spend that time rereading something. Can I ever be a Major Reader? And does it mean my reading is not worth as much if I’m not?

What books have you reread?

Reading in Circles

I recently posted a video on my YouTube channel about what I’ve been reading so far in 2011. Soon after posting the video, I finished up Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh and picked up The Best American Essays 2010 (BAE). And that’s when a circle that began earlier this month was laid out for me. I read in circles. It turns out that although I don’t read on a schedule or plan what books I’m going to read in the future, somehow the next book always finds me, or suggests other books that I should read.

from The New Yorker

A recent circle: Earlier this month I read a collection of George Orwell’s essays (Did you know his real name was Eric Blair? Neither did I), Books vs. Cigarettes. I liked it. I had read 1984 a few years before and bought this particular collection back when I was living in Exeter, England. I finally got around to reading it this year. Two books later, I picked up Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited and finished that earlier this week. Last weekend, I went to a dear friend’s house and borrowed a book. That book just happened to be Down and Out in Paris and London by none other than George Orwell. Only, that’s not all. So, when I finish the Waugh, I pick up BAE and what should I find inside but an article on George Orwell. THEN, because the circle is not yet complete, I was searching for Books vs. Cigarettes on Kenny’s Kindle to see if he could get it there. It wasn’t available, but guess what I did find. A book entitled The Same Man: George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh in Love and War. HOLY CRAP! If that’s not a circular reading pattern, I don’t know what is. I didn’t purchase Same Man and I have yet to read Down and Out or the Orwell essay in BAE (A Fine Rage by James Wood, first published in The New Yorker), but it still totally counts because I’m going to read it and yet another circle will be completed and probably in the process a new one begun. (Usually, my “circles” don’t consist of the same author again and again. It just so happened that Orwell was the common link this time.)

Most of my reading happens in this way. It’s half the joy I find in reading, the way literature is all connected in some regard. I understand that this makes me a big fat NERD, but who cares? As John Green said in one of his vlogs, “Nerds are allowed to be un-ironically enthusiastic about stuff. Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-your-chair-can’t-control-yourself LOVE it. When people call people nerds, mostly what they’re saying is, ‘You like stuff.’ Which is not a very good insult at all. Like, ‘You are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness.’” 

(And no, I haven’t read Animal Farm. And no, I probably won’t read it. I have a particular sensitivity to animals suffering, being vilified, and oh yeah, dying.)

More Writing; Less Other Stuff

Writing. What do you do every day that doesn't contribute to your writing - and can you eliminate it?

(via)

 I do not watch TV every day. But when I watch TV, I am watching. T. V. Don't talk to me, don't ask me anything, don't bother me, don't stand in front of the TV to get my attention. Basically, I turn into a monster when I watch TV. You may address me during commercial breaks, with caution. I also like to watch hours at the time. I can't just watch an hour of television. It turns into a four or five hour couch fest, sometimes involving ice cream. Now, like I said before, I don't watch TV everyday, but it's a seriously prohibitive activity for me. As in, it prohibits any other activity.

Can I eliminate this distraction that keeps me from spending time with words? Yup. Just last night on the way home from work, Kenny and I decided that we would cancel our TV service for the next year. It's going to be such a relief, really. Our last day with the TV is Saturday!

I also spend an enormous amount of time reading. I read books, (I read 5 last month, I think), I read a multitude of blogs, I read articles and magazines. Basically, I'll read whatever I can get my hands on. Now, one of the dangers of reading is that no one is going to tell a writer to stop reading. But there are seasons of reading and writing. Any writer will acknowledge that you have to fill up, then produce, then refill. I think to create good art, you have to be consuming good art.  However, my reading season has expired. It has now become a substitution for writing. I use the fact that I am reading beautiful, thought-provoking, fabulous stuff as a justification. Consider: who is going to judge me for reading Bronte's Villette or Wharton's Age of Innocence? Who would deny me my Kurt Vonnegut or Graham Greene or Dave Eggers or Mary Oliver? No one. However, there is a time for everything.

Can I eliminate reading? Nope. And I don't know that it's an option. It's built into me. I come equipped with a psychological need to read. Parts of me start to wither and shrink when I'm not reading. But it is time to eliminate reading as an excuse for writing. I'm going to set a time to do each and not allow my reading to substitute for writing. As Solomon wrote so long ago:

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hat,
a time for war and a time for peace."

I'd like to add a time for reading and a time for writing to the list.

This post is part of reverb10 and was written in response to the daily prompt. Why don't you join me in reflecting on 2010 and deciding what you want from 2011? 

Right Now

I am in a weird mood, akin to grief in some way. Maybe grief's second cousin. I finished Graham Greene's The Comedians last night and I'm a bit sad it's over. I think I always feel this way after finishing a book - some more than others. I step into another place and live there for a while. I got used to the idea of Haiti and the Tontons Macoute with their dark sunglasses and jeeps. I was familiar with the Columbus statue where Brown and Martha would rendezvous. I was fond of Joseph, limp and all, and could almost taste his famous rum punches. Anyway, it's over. I've put it back on the shelf, next to Villette, which also brought me to tears and showed just how much one can still manage to understand while skipping paragraphs of French I should be able to read.

Perhaps this mood is amplified by my current musical obsession: Goldmund's The Malady of Elegance. Also, I am mortified that I am just now discovering The Kings of Convenience. Go listen. Now.

However, I am definitely excited at the same time. Amazing how dichotomous I can be, eh? Tonight we settled with our landlord another year's contract. We'll be in Wonju for at least another year in our current apartment. We'll be getting new flooring in the office and our bedroom PLUS! an air conditioner for next summer! Woot. We only have to pay for installation for the air conditioner. The year's rent is incredibly reasonable and we've saved just enough in our "housing" savings account to be able to pay it all in advance come January. I'm thinking of doing a few things to spruce up our bedroom because it's so boring, and yet it's such a lovely place to be. I've been reluctant to put much more effort into the apartment since we don't own it and we'll probably move out after this next year here. But I think that's silly now. I should strive to make wherever I am a comfortable home and even though I might not own it, I can somehow make it mine.

I'm also currently thinking about Christmas gifts! Sadly, I'm doing more thinking than anything else! I know what I'm making for some of my family and friends and I just need to get busy.

Well, that's about all right now. Oh, and since I opened with books, I'll close by telling you I'm a few pages into Dave Egger's Zeitoun. I'm a reading freak these days.

What are you up to right now?

Of the Moment. Or Minute. Whatever, here's a list.

Hello my name is Danielle, and I am obsessed with a number of things at the moment. Besides iced caramel macchiato. That's pretty much a given on any day. And because it's late and because I'd rather be singing with my husband (We're in a singing phase. He plays guitar. We sing. You wish you were us, I know), a list.

1. First, this video:

SUMMER CAMP - Round the Moon from Paddy Power on Vimeo.

via my new favorite blog I Am Photograph, actually found via my other new favorite blog, A Beautiful Mess. Watch this video. For reals.

Next, I have become slightly entirely bewitched by Internet shopping now that I've got a PayPal account. Turns out this was a huge mistake. It's so easy to push the little button and all my info is filled out and all I have to do is click. I should really wait until all my stuff arrives (of course I order from across the world and must have everything shipped to Korea, which takes FOR-EV-UR) and make a huge post, but I can't wait. This is my new winter way to make Koreans smile before noon! I'm pretty sure it's just as good as this one.

I bought this at Red Velvet Art owned by the lovely Elsie of aforementioned A Beautiful Mess. Really, this list is more like connect the dots.

Number Three: The picture above was taken with my iPhone and my latest App infatuation: Instagram. This is my favorite photo app so far, although I'm still loving the Hipstamatic and ShakeItPhoto. But Instagram is just good. It's easy to share your pictures and the quality is fabulous. Here are some of my favorite shots with it so far.

                        

Also, I'm never not obsessed with my cats, but right now I'm obsessed with taking pictures of them. Especially Miso. She's just so photogenic and she looks at the camera and she stays still, like she knows what I'm doing. I'm not going to bore you with my latest series of kitters photos (don't worry, Bo is having his fair share in the spotlight, too). I'll save that for later. Put it on your calendar.

Next on the list is my latest absorption in literature. I'm just devouring it. I just finished Wuthering Heights two days ago. My favorite part: "...he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same." I'm pretty lucky that I feel this way about my husband most of the time. (You can gag now. Go ahead; I'll wait.) Yesterday, I picked up and finished Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman. Sharp, moving collection of essays if ever there was one. Today, I began Graham Greene's The Comedians. Next in the queue are another Dave Eggers, Zeitoun, and yet another Vonnegut, Slapstick, because there is no such thing as too much Vonnegut.

Since I began this list of obsessions with music, I think I'll end it there, too. What's playing over and over all day, while I grade papers, while I'm at my desk with 10 minutes to kill between classes, while I run in the middle of the night, while I drive 5 minutes down the street? Well, I'll tell you. Florence + the Machine. I am consumed by this music. Specifically, this:



And this:



And that, my lovelies, is what I am preoccupied with and riveted by these days.

What are you currently obsessing over?

It's Called Avoiding the Mess in the Kitchen

I have an entire kitchen to clean because I didn't get that done before we left for work today. And when I came home, I looked at that mess in there, and I turned right around and walked back out. I picked up my latest indulgence, Kurt Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan, plopped myself down in the middle of the couch, and finished it.

Then, I looked at the dishes piled beside the sink, managed a glance at the winking food dryer telling me it needs to be emptied, remembered the salad I bought that should be washed and prepared tonight to make tomorrow easier, and I turned right around and sat down in front of my computer.

Perhaps I should allow the dirty dishes to motivate me to blog more often.

Anyway, I'm taking this procrastination moment brought to you by my messy kitchen to tell you about my reading lately. I mean to do this every so often, because I'm almost always reading something good. This month I finally discovered the perfect irreverence and winding narrative of Salman Rushdie in Midnight's Children. I loved the way the story spiraled around itself and you knew you were on a staircase, but sometimes couldn't figure out whether you were going up or down. It's long, but worth every sentence.

This past Sunday, Kenny ran his first half-marathon, and like the supportive, wonderful wife I am, I went and sat in the car for most of it and read. I ended up finishing Dave Egger's The Wild Things later that evening after dinner. The Wild Things is a novel that sprung from the screenplay he wrote with Spike Jonze for Where the Wild Things Are. The screenplay, of course, was based on the brilliant children's book by Maurice Sendak.  It's an imaginative, beautiful, heart-rending romp through childhood in the head of Max, an 8-year-old boy in his wolf suit. It's good. Read it.

And for the past few days, I'd been working my way through Titans. I love Kurt Vonnegut, without reservation. I love his black humor, satire, and wit. I enjoy sinking all the way into his outrageous worlds and the lives of his characters. My favorite Vonnegut of all I've read is Bluebeard followed closely by Breakfast of Champions. Everything is good, but those are particularly and perfectly weird.

And with The Sirens of Titan I've exhausted my collection of fiction at home, so I'll probably make a foray back into the depths of Young Adult literature we have at the library at school. Whenever I take my classes into the library each week to pick out their books, looking at the covers of all the books I read and folded into myself while I was in elementary and middle school makes me nostalgic, but in a beautiful opposite-of-sad way. Because I can reread them and relive and refold the stories back into myself in a different way, seeing new things, noticing new things. Sometimes I think good books are like good donuts. I've already tasted this kind, but that doesn't stop me from ordering them again and again.

Here, have a donut hole, courtesy of Vonnegut:

"It took us that long to realize that a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved."

                                                          ~Malachi Constant / Unk / The Space Wanderer, Sirens of Titan

How do you avoid the mess in your kitchen? And what are you reading? Do tell.

Touchy Feely

Kenny is currently reading The Brothers Karamazov on my iPhone. He feels that once he has succeeded in reading Dostoevsky's tome in English, he will have reached some pinnacle of language learning and will then be magically filled with inspiration. I guess then, he's going to write something. In English? Not sure. But the thing is, it bothers me.

It bothers me that he is reading this novel on an iPhone.

I love my iPhone. It's like a permanent extension of my right hand. I'm absolutely enamored with this piece of technology that puts the Internet in my pocket 24/7. And with Korea's super-duper technology obsession, there's pretty much free wi-fi in the street. I read blogs on my iPhone; I read Tweets on my iPhone (isn't that what it was made for, anyway?); I read emails on my iPhone. But I do not read books. Nope.

I don't count it as reading. There should be a cover. There should be the turning of pages. There should be scribbling in margins, underlining sentences, bracketing paragraphs, and marking entire chapters. I also have a habit of moving the book around constantly as I'm reading it. It's a strange habit and I didn't know I did it until my best friend Kerri asked me why I was doing that to the book. I hold it in both hands and bend the pages away from each other, then let them fall back together. I don't break the binding, but I just read with this slow widening of the book, this back and forth motion with my hands. I often rub my right thumb over the pages I have left to read, perhaps measuring how much further our relationship will progress.

I love the snot out of my books. There's something about the weight of the page, the set of the type, the width of the binding that marries the story itself in my hands. I could possibly be blindfolded and handed any number of books from my collection and tell you without looking which book it was. I'm kind of touchy feely with my books. I also have an initial press that I clamp around the cover of most of my books when I get them. So, sometimes, while I'm subtly rocking my book, I'm running my fingers over the small ridges of the lowercase cursive d and my maiden-name b.

Maybe I'm a little neurotic about the act of reading itself. I'm okay with this. I'm never going to be a Kindle person, or any kind of electronic reading device person. I am well aware it is more portable, more affordable, more convenient. But it does not sit right with my insides. Something feels fake, forced, and disconnected. When I read a story, somehow it becomes a part of me and shifts things around in my guts, my heart. Maybe sometimes the shift is imperceptible. But it's there. And I feel it with a book in my hands, pages between my fingers, without buzzing or beeping.

So last night, after almost 4 hours of watching Kenny read The Brothers Karamazov in a coffee shop, I came home and pulled out the book itself. It felt so good. As I opened it and flipped through it, I remembered not so much the story in the book, but the way I had felt while reading it. The texture of the pages, the weight of it in my hands woke something up inside me. I said, "How can you not want to hold this?" I believe in good writing. And I believe that there is crap out there in beautiful binding. But when good writing and satisfying binding come together, it takes reading to another level altogether for me.

For those of you reading on a screen, the story remains the same. The words are in the same order, sometimes even on the same number of pages. But I still think there's something missing!

What about you? Are you a tactile reader or a technological reader?

Summertime

[credit]

My life, tomorrow, will errupt with activity. I will be teaching an English camp in the morning from 9am-12:50 pm, and then I'll be heading to work as usual from 2-9. The camp is 10 days long and I must have temporarily lost my mind, because it coincides with our summer break here at ELP. Which means that instead of a week off, I will have a week of teaching middle schoolers who can barely say their ABCs English. But I will have my afternoons free. And I will have a nice chunk of change in the bank afterward. I'm also this week catching up with my running plan. I'm living in week 5, but running week 4. I think I will sleep well. So, there's that.

Also, I wanted to tell you that last night I was propped up on my elbows, lying on my stomach in bed, reading Why I Wake Early, a collection of poems from Mary Oliver. And after I read page 43, I had to flip over onto my back, sling one hand over my chest, and let the tears soak back up into my eyes as I stared at the ceiling. This poem devastated me. Just devastated me. 91% of that devastation was from it's beauty and perfection. The other 9% of the devastation stemmed from the fact that I didn't write it first. Not that I'm capable of Mary Oliver quality. But whenever I read good writing, really good writing, there's some twinge deep in my chest. It's related to regret and I think it's a cousin of jealousy. But not quite. Anyway, back to being devastated. It was just that good.


It's the middle of summer, so I will share this mid-summer poem with you. Be careful. You might have to flip over onto your back and take a few deep breaths. I plan to live in this poem for the next two weeks.

Luna

In the early curtains
of the dusk,
it flew,
a slow galloping

this way and that way
through the trees
and under the trees.
I live

in the openmindedness
of not knowing enough
about anything.
It was beautiful.

It was silent.
It didn't even have a mouth.
But it wanted something,
it had a purpose

and a few precious hours
to find it,
and I suppose it did.
The next evening

it lay on the ground
like a broken leaf
and didn't move,
which hurt my heart

which is another small thing
that doesn't know much.
When this happened it was about the middle of summer,

which also has its purposes
and only so many precious hours.
How quietly,
and not with any assignment from us,

or even a small hint
of understanding,
everything that needs to be done
is done.

~Mary Oliver

P.S. I wrote this post instead of scavenging for my dinner tonight. Because sometimes, poetry trumps hunger.

The Books that Changed Me

From childhood, where my mother frequently found me holed up in my closet with all my books stacked in a big pile, slowly reading one and putting it on another pile beside my Playskool oven and stove combo, books have been shaping me. (Alas, I never imagined this rather round and squishy shape being the end result, but I'm working on it, people!) So, when I read The Korean's Top 10 List of Most Influential books, inspired by this NY Times editorial, I made a mental note to make one of my own.

And surprisingly, I actually read my mental note a few days later. Usually those things get put behind large signs that say, "Drink coffee," "Feed the cats," "Shower." They get lost along with all my other mental post-its covered in reminders to pluck my eyebrows, mail that letter, and clean that spoon I found in my cup holder. But this mental note was not lost. Like Ross Douthat and The Korean before me, I'm also not listing my Top 10 Favorite Books. I'm sure the lists would overlap in a lot of places, but I'm going with my gut here. These are in chronological order, approximately. 

1. The Bugg Books by Stephen Cosgrove

 (Granted, a series and not a single book, but influential nonetheless!) My grandmother owned almost all of these "Topsy Turvy" books, that had two front covers and two stories that met in the middle. I would stay up late at night whenever I spent the night at her house reading a story, flipping the book over, and reading another. Every story starts with the same lines:

As you lay on a summer's day

In a cool and shady place,

Don't look up into the skies;

Instead look down and squint your eyes.

              Squint your eyes so very tight,

           And if you wish with all your might,

       You'll find the land of More-Than-Small.

             In this land live buggs- that's all!

These stories were just like the Serendipity books, also written by Stephen Cosgrove, and happened to be the first series of books I ever read my way through in the closet next to my stove. Each story contains a different moral, teaching children to share, to value fellow-bugs over money, to be kind, and to believe in the magic of the animal world. I believe that these books are responsible for my uber-sensitivity when it comes to animals. Believing that even small bugs that are insignificant to me (and all other furry animals for that matter) have their own struggles with good and evil and work so hard to make the right decisions makes it really hard to step on a spider without thinking twice. (Crickets are different, though. They have no moral compass at all, so a swift shoe swat is completely ethical in my view.) I hold Stephen Cosgrove personally responsible for the tears I have shed at even the slightest hint of animal cruelty, the breath-interrupting sobs at those humane society commercials, and the headache I gave myself trying not to cry when the boy had to push the ape and be mean to him in order to get him to leave and be free at the end of that Born To Be Free movie. These books definitely shaped the way I see the world. 

2. On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I heard this book before I read it. A good friend in high school, Taylor Jones read this book to me while we sat in the hallway during 3rd period Latin. I was a teacher's assistant and he was in Latin II, but this class was Latin I because the other didn't fit into his schedule. So, most days, we ended up on the cold, hard floor in the hall. I was fascinated with Kerouac immediately. This book changed the way I thought about writing and using profanity in writing. When Taylor read, I could hear Sal and Dean; I could hear how every word fit perfectly, even the bad ones. For a Southern Baptist sophomore in high school, this was life-altering. I didn't choose to use "bad" language myself until college, and even now, I'm very selective about it. My thoughts on what it is that makes profanity profane began that day in the hallway at LaVergne High School.

3. Beowulf.  This book changed the way I interacted with every text I came across afterward. Perhaps this is less the book, but more the teacher under which I read it and discussed it. This was the first book that I felt shift things on my insides, in my soul. I felt other books had perhaps influenced my thinking, but this one affected my heart. Maybe that's vague and perhaps it's not completely something I could ever explain. Can we ever fully comprehend the exact way a book becomes a part of us as we read it? I'm not sure. And I'm okay with that.

4. Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie.  For me, this book did for history what the Bugg Books did for animals. It made the people who used to live before me real.  I just happened to pick it up while browsing through the basement floor of Shorter College's musty library. I really had no reason to be down there. All the literature and English major's books were on the second floor, upstairs, where the only bathroom I would poop in besides my own was located. I remember truly connecting with the characters that Massie resurrected and reading the letters between Nicholas and Alexandra, cherishing the way he called her his "wifey."Before reading this, history was hard for me to connect with, even in college. Of course, I had always connected with history through fiction (i.e. Faulkner's Light in August; Ellison's Invisible Man and Juneteenth), but this made me see real people as real people.

5. Wilderness and the American Mind by Roderick Frazier Nash.  I was a junior in college taking a class with the brilliant Dr. Wilson Hall when I read this book.  It was on his syllabus. Reading this book was my wake up call to the ethics of environmentalism. It is an interesting history of the way America's ideas of wilderness evolved over time. Even the LA Times calls this book one of the hundred most influential books in the last 25 years. Almost all of my ideas about what wilderness is and should be were born in this class, and are a direct by-product of this particular text.

6. The Collected Poems of Anne Sexton. This book had to duke it out with a number of Billy Collins' collections. Because I view Billy Collins as pretty much the master of the English language. Period. However, I think Anne being a woman had something to do with the way I connected with her poems. This collection of poems forced my heart up into my throat so many times. I cried over these verses, I agonized with these lines, and I felt for the first time that someone had looked inside my brain, rooted around in the depths of my darkest corners, and put what they found on paper in the exact words I would have used. Sexton helped me fully realize that good poetry is universal and how. Whenever I want to read good poetry, I reach for this volume. (Billy Collins is such a darn close second. And perhaps he changed the way I wrote more than Sexton ever would. But I think the way Sexton writes about sex and relationships as a woman pushes her up there, just a smidgen.) 

7. The Poisonwood Bible: This book taught me that truth is not the same thing as fact. I found this book on the bookshelf of an 80-year old English woman. Her name was Shiela and she was living in Cornwall when Kenny and I visited her in January of 2007. I began reading it and when we went back to Exeter, headed straight for Blackwell's to purchase my own copy. (I was more eager to get my hands on my own because this amazing girl I attended Shorter with recommended it. And when something has the Joanna Burgess stamp of approval on it, whether it be books, music, or plays, it's worth taking the time to experience it.) This book confirmed so many things I felt about Christianity and it's war on culture that was (and is) so distasteful to me. I also read it during the time when I was discovering how much of our lives are woven into narrative arcs so we can make sense of them. How we turn our lives into stories. How truth resonates through even fictitious characters, places, and circumstances. And how sometimes the truest things never took place at all. 

8. White Guilt: How Black and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era by Shelby Steele. Let me remind you again here that these aren't necessarily the best books I've read, but simply the ones that changed or influenced my thinking the most. This book doesn't necessarily provide very many answers for the continued racial tensions in America, but it does do a good job detailing what's not working and many of the reasons why. I think this book resonated with me because I did and sometimes still do tend to wallow in "white guilt." I almost always side with racial minorities or the weaker party on any issue, regardless of right or wrong. I just feel like the old white men have won so much and made the rules for so long and something in me feels responsible for that, even though I know it's ridiculous. This feeling has many unexpected consequences that I feel Steele illustrates clearly. I guess this book changed the way I think about power, the people who have it, and the people who don't have it.

9. Incandescence: 365 Readings with Women Mystics (Rereleased as A Little Daily Wisdom) by Carmen Acevedo Butcher. This reader definitely influenced my views on Christianity and what it looks like. It introduced me to the Mother in God, the passionate women who shaped our religion and yet so seldom are recognized or even heard of. The mystery of Christ has been lost. We are so afraid of the word "mystical" anyway. This daily reader from Carmen Butcher opened up a feminine side of Christianity that resonated powerfully within me. Her translations are incredible. I feel like these mystics are writing me a letter; my name seems to be at the top of every page, and I imagine their scrawling signatures at the bottom. I love reading of the strength, the vision, and the gentle humility of these amazing, suffering, and saintly women. The binding of my copy is busted and some sections of pages have fallen out. I keep the book together with a rubber band. I know I should purchase a new copy that isn't about to crumble or lose its guts, but I love this book. I love the underlining in it, the notes I made, the way the particular sentences take me back to the feelings I had when I first read them. This is one of those books that leads you down a path of personal revelation, resolution, and revolution. I love it.

10. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy: This is one of those books that would also make it onto the list of my top 10 favorite books I've ever read. Reading it while in India was amazing. It, along with White Tiger, finished up the work that the Poisonwood Bible started. The narrative made India come alive for me while I was there. It also made my world so much wider. Roy's writing is perfection. I loved rolling her sentences around in my head. I used to think that Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko was the book with the most perfect word choice, the way her sentences lined up so neatly one after another, flowing into my world and showing me another. But I think Roy finally topped Silko. 

There are so many more books that belong on this list. A few that didn't quite make the cut: A Light in August by William Faulkner; Turtle Island by Gary Snyder; The Gift of Good Earth by Wendell Berry; Bluebeard and almost everything else by Kurt Vonnegut; What We Say Goes by Noam Chomsky; A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers; Catch-22 by Joseph Heller; The Collected Poems of Charles Bukowski; The Journals of Sylvia Plath; Everything by Rumi; Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison; The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

I am still being shaped, chipped away at, and refined by the books I read. 

What books have made you who you are?

Good, Good Friday

Death, be not proud, though some have called you

Mighty and dreadful, for you are not so;

For those, whom you think you do overthrow,

Die not, poor Death, nor yet can you kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but your pictures be,

Much pleasure, then from you much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with you do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

You're slave to Fate, chance, kings and desperate men,

And do with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,

And better than your stroke; why swell you then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And Death shall be no more; Death, you shall die.

~John Donne: Holy Sonnet X

That is the Good Friday Morning reading in Following Christ: A Lenten Reader to Stretch Your Soul by Carmen Acevedo Butcher. (I know her!) And I thought it was so appropriate because the flowers on our veranda have been sick and weary of the dark grey skies and weather. Like me. But today, they seemed to perk up and behold the sunshine. A few more good, good things on this Good Friday:

You didn't really think I'd post two times in a row without squeezing in some photos of the kitters, did you?

Have a lovely, rejuvenating, death-conquering, redemptive Good Friday, y'all!

[ a big chubby Thank You ]

So, remember how this used to be ChubbO Chubbington? Before I moved on to Wonju Wife? Well, I haven't exactly stopped being a ChubbO, as we are all well aware. And because ChubbO's make amazing friends despite their donut-dependencies, I got one of the best presents EVER in the mail the other day. It was from my friend Bennett, who is a crazy, smart, and all-around strawberry to hang out with. (Yeah, remember how we're calling people strawberries instead of peaches here at Wonju Wife? Just a reminder: I don't like peaches. I loooooove me some strawberries.) I met him through my oh-my-god-have-we-been-friends-for-half-our-lives-already friend Melanie. Because they are crazy people who run marathons. Unlike me. I am one of those people who stands on the side of the road with a sweet tea in one hand and a funnel cake in the other while yelling for the crazy marathon runners. Right, sorry. To the point!

So appropriate, no?

Bennett found this book at a flea market, and of course, thought of me! I'm honored, actually. And the note inside was just as thoughtful: "Thought of you when I saw this book. Not that I think you are a ChubbO, but because of your blog. And because you are not good at sharing. maybe this book could teach you something." OH MY BACK FAT. He is so right. We all know I'm not good at sharing. Especially when it comes to food. This beautiful book tells the story of one hippo named Chubbo who doesn't like to share his pool with any other animals. I was amazed by the watercolors. Usually, I'm not a fan of watercolor, but perhaps Chubbo has changed my mind!

Chubbo getting comfy in his lovely watering hole.

Chubbo actively not sharing.

The illustrations are gorgeous and the story is touching. Besty Lewin, author and illustrator, writes in her author's note, "This is a fictional story inspired by my experience in Botswana's Okavango Delta with a real hippo who refused to share his part of the river with anyone else."

Thanks, Bennett! I love it. It's perfect. And I'm not sharing it. So there.

[More on Middlemarch]

'You must be sure of two things: you must love your work, and not always be looking over the edge of it, wanting your play to begin. And the other is, you must not be ashamed of your work, and think it would be more honourable to you to be doing something else. You must have a pride in your own work and in learning to do it well, and not always be saying, There's this and there's that- if I had this or that to do, I might make something of it. No matter what a man is - I wouldn't give twopence for him' - here Caleb's mouth looked bitter, and he snapped his fingers - 'whether he was the prime minister or the rick-thatcher, if he didn't do well what he undertook to do.'

George Eliot wrote these words  found on page 562 of my 1994 Penguin Classics copy of Middlemarch borrowed from the school's library. And it got me thinking about "my work." What exactly is my work? Surely it isn't teaching. I enjoy it and it suits me, mostly because it feeds my self esteem to have someone looking at me for at least 6 hours out of everyday. It's nice to have a room full of people listen to you, and sometimes to write down what you say. There is some satisfaction in feeling a bit more important than I know I truly am. But this work is not what I love to do. And I do find myself, more often than I'd like to admit, looking over the edge and wondering when I get to play.

I've been absent for a while. I've been silent for a few weeks, with random posts stuck in here to hold my place in your mind or your Reader. And I have missed something. I've missed the way I feel at home when I think about things in words. I've missed the way I make miniscule but important self-discoveries when I try to fit everything flying through my head into paragraphs. I've missed the joy I find in the dance of my fingers over the keyboard. And it makes me hope that this is my work. That writing is my true work. I find that I have pride in my writing in a way that is not found in any other area of my lfe. Not a pride that sets me above others, but rather one that makes me thankful and sure of myself.

I guess I am still trying to find a balance in my life. A balance that creates a space for my husband, for housework, and for writing. (We won't mention that I have a full time job). I'm not balancing those things well. It seems I am either an exceptional wife who writes little but remembers to clean the litter box, or I am a writer who does little else exceptionally. This writing thing is powerful and time-consuming. And I can get lost in it.

But when I find myself lost in writing, I found myself missing out on my life. I'd like to be worth twopence, though. I'd like to be able to devote myself fully to my passion. I've been given the gift of actually knowing what I'd like to do with myself. So many people are still wandering about, trying to figure out what they're suited for. But I know. I know! I'm wondering when I'll be brave enough to try to feed myself with these sentences.

Until then, I will be mindful of not saying "There's this and there's that- and if I had this or that to do, I might make somehting of it." I have this and I have that. And I can make something of it. I think.....

The Gift of Good Books

I love it when what I'm reading all comes together for me, when what I read meets me where I am. I don't have to stretch to reach it, turn over to be touched by it, or look anything up in the dictionary. It just sinks right down into my soul and tweaks it a bit. I'm living in these words from Don Miller's Through Painted Deserts this week:

I want to keep my soul fertile. For the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die. I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page reccurently.

I've been thinking a bit about discipline and what that looks like for me. And it's funny because I normally think about discipline as the inhuman ability to do the same thing over and over. Like my father. But for me, I think discipline is more about the ability to change things. Even the things that are comfortable. Sometimes most of all the things that are comfortable. What I'm trying to say is that all our lives, we'll be in the process of changing. I think that's the real discipline: to be able to accept when the time for change comes and to not spend time mourning the death of the things that should die, but to get busy having thing born inside you. I've been changing a few things, small things. But it feels good. Sometimes though, we get all caught up in the changes we should be making, in the life we should be living, and we forget that all the good stuff isn't holed up hiding out in our future selves somewhere. So, to temper this responsiveness in my soul:

You feel like this life is always leading up to something, but it isn't. I mean life is just life. It's all happening right now, and we aren't going to be any more complete a month from now than we are now. 

So, the changes are important. Discipline is important. But it's not like I'm ever going to be a more complete person. I've somehow found myself unconsciously buying into this idea that I'm incomplete. I need to buy things, to subscribe to things, to eat certain things, to acquire certain things to be complete. But really, I'm complete already. As complete as I'm going to get. I just have to LIVE now. And living is definitely NOT the same thing as consuming. Consuming is exhausting work, and I'm tired of it.

And then, after reading this book a few weeks ago, I come across a few passages in Wendell Berry's The Gift of Good Earth, which is beautiful. Never thought I would describe a collection of essays from the late seventies and early eighties on agriculture as beautiful, but so be it. It's also profound.

A second law is that anything diseased is more profitable than anything that is healthy. What is wrong with us contributes more to the "gross national product" than what is right with us.

And

In a healthy culture, of course, personal health and frugality would not be difficult- they would not be perceived as "disciplines." They become difficult when disease and waste become normal.

And maybe you guys are all rolling your eyes with that "duh" look on your face because you think about these kinds of things on a daily basis. For me, this is not necessarily new territory, but a new way to see things I've been looking at for a long time. And to understand that I'm finding certain "disciplines" difficult not just because I am broken or damaged or don't have enough intestinal fortitude. But because where I live, disease and waste are normal. And rewinding, moving backwards is almost always counterintuitive and hell, it's just hard. Because personal health and frugality are not prized by our cash economies or our entrepreneurial spirits.

I've been valuing indulgence, treating myself, and getting what I want over personal health. I've been valuing instant gratification and the quick-fix or most convenient solution over frugality. And although it feels easier, it's not. Like I said, it's exhausting and I've nothing to show for it. But working hard for health and working hard to live simply- that's worth it. I will always have something to show for it.

So I guess, I'm changing. And then, I'm being okay with the fact that I'm living life now. That when I make these changes, I don't somehow become more complete. But that with each change I learn how to live a little better, a little more fully. And reminding myself what's important: health, simplicity, frugality.

What's important to you? What changes are you making?

Just a Small Reminder...

A wonderful little reminder that CHRISTMAS IS COMING, in case you forgot. This is from Jessica Hagy's site Indexed where she publishes a daily index card that helps her organize her thoughts "without resorting to doing actual math." I mean, hello? I NEVER do actual math. I do Danielle Math, as Kenny has dubbed it, which sometimes resembles real math but is always a little off. I don't know. Even Rummikub starts to give me a headache after a while; just looking at all those numbers starts to make my brain feel like it's done too many crunches.

I've been neglecting the old Wonju Wife blog of late. And with good reason, too! The HubbO came down with something last week that looked and acted suspiciously like (dunh dunh duh dunnnnnhhhh) Swine Flu. Oh yes, the influenza o' pig threatened to infiltrate our household. We went up to the hospital on Saturday to have him tested and they said, "We'll call you in 2 hours to let you know." Um,  it's Monday. Still haven't gotten that call. We are guessing it's not swine flu and is probably just regular old boring-but-still-as-crappy flu. Anyway, not kissing is getting really old, let me tell ya.

Also, I've been thinking. I've been thinking a lot about travel as I'm working on our book project. And I have come to the conclusion that the thing you must do while you travel is wonder. You must wonder what life is like. And while you are wondering, you must never assume. Because when you assume you understand someone else's way of life because you spent a week in their town, a month in their village, or three months in their country, you lose something. Assumptions and knowing somehow put up a wall that keep all of the wonder out.

I'm going to start sharing a little bit more about our honeymoon and the things I learned about myself, about my husband, and about the world in general here. Those posts will serve as jumping off points for the chapters I'm writing, and hopefully take a little of the pressure off, because let me tell you. Writing for you guys: awesome, fun, no-pressure (okay, but just the tiniest bit of pressure) and rewarding. Writing for an editor: freaking intimidating, wet-your-pants scary, and oh-my-god-did-I-say-I-was-a-writer? kind of nervous. And it's scary. Because I've been given this beautiful opportunity and if I fail... Well, let's not talk about it. Let's pretend I'll just write my little wrists off and everything will be swell! Okay? Okay.

And travel isn't the only thing that's been on my mind. I've been thinking about this blog and what it's become. It's gone through a few transformations over the past two years. Honestly, I can't even remember what it was BEFORE Rage in the A.M. Rage was about loving and hating Korea, loving and hating myself in this country, and loving and hating, well everything. Then ChubbO Chubbington came along and I berated myself continually and lost a bunch of weight and complained about food and wrote about 500 posts on donuts. But somehow, it was still sort of about Korea. And then Wonju Wife came along. And now, it's pretty much about MY life (oh, and I live in Korea). So I've been thinking a lot about how I'd like to do something helpful, you know? Give a little back to the community that gave so much to me when I first arrived. So, that's in the works.

Plus also, I finally finished all the Harry Potter books. And dear J.K. Rowling, I am a little lost without Harry now. I have my brain back, but I was enjoying giving a large chunk of it to him and his adventure. Now, I must stop talking about him like he's someone I regularly sit down and have a cuppa and chat with.

November

It's November. Which is followed closely by December. And we all know what that means....

CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!

So, now that we've got that out of the way... I present the latest adorable and squeeeish picture of the boy cat.

I am determined that November shall be the month we finally cure him of all remaining tummy bacteria and he stops tracking poop throughout the house and we stop  having to bathe him twice a week. Because let me tell you, cleaning Bo is more stressful than cleaning poop. November shall also be the month in which I finish up the Harry Potter series. And thank God, too, because I am a slave to J.K. Rowling. It will be nice to have the inside of my head back, although this romp throughout the wizarding world is definitely exciting and suspenseful. But, I need my brain back in order to do normal everyday things like wash the dishes, blog, and have conversations. November will also be the month in which I get around to telling you about my awesome last half of October. November is also being cancelled, for those of you residing in Korea.

And now, I must return to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Because as smart as I convince myself I am, I really have no clue whose side Snape is on!

FAAAAAAAAAT!!!

Pardon all the excessive editing done to this piece. It was the only clip I could find.

Anyway, as I was saying, "FAAAAT! Fat fat fatty."

So Matthew Broderick is moi and Nathan Lane is also moi. This is what my insides yelled at my outsides when I found myself standing naked in front of the mirror this morning. Oh yes. You're hearing me right. The Belly is back! In full force, too. But.

I just finished reading Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies this afternoon. For some reason, reading this was so insanely perfect. She has this way of praying that is so simple and full of faith. When she is scared, she says, "I'm scared. Help me." When she is frustrated with someone, she writes her name down and says, "Help me," and slips it into God's Inbox. When she is thankful, she says, "Thank you, thank you, thank you." And for some reason, this seemed so profound to me. I guess growing up in the church, I've always had this idea of what prayer is and what prayer should be for me. I felt like, at times, that my prayers should be "advanced" (whatever that means) because I'd been praying for a long time and usually when you do something for a while you get better at it. So I thought I should be better than "Help me." When I was in high school I started to write my prayers. It worked for me. It helped me to focus and to get down what I wanted to say. And it helped me be honest with myself. And also provided a record to look back at and see who had been faithful. Let me tell you- it was never me. But then it became an obsession, and I began creating rules for my prayer writing. I'm so good at making up rules. And I always think, if I can just follow the rules then I'll have it all together.

I know, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, do you really think anyone ever has it all together? Haven't you figured out by now that this all together mess is a myth? And yes! Yes I know. But somehow the knowledge that all together will never exist hasn't kept me from reverting back to behaving as if it is a possibility. So anyway, I created rules. Then I decided I would break free from my rules. And when I did that, I pretty much liberated myself from prayer altogether. And this has been a seemingly interminable cycle for me. I'll find something that works. Then I'll mess it all up by adding rules and making schedules and disappointing myself fifteen hundred times by not keeping my rules or my schedule and then I feel guilty and then I hate myself for feeling guilty and then I decide to rid myself of the rules and schedules by ridding myself of the thing that was being ruled and scheduled. (Sometimes run-ons are perfection.)

But Anne Lamott, man. She does not have it all together. And she has dreadlocks. And she wrote a chapter on her dreads. She also wrote a chapter on feeding herself. It was perfect. And she wrote about how when her car broke down, she prayed, "Help me." And when her heart was broken, she prayed, "Help me." And when her son wanted to go paragliding off a mountain she prayed, "Seriously. Help me." Her faith is worked out in her life in these tiny small bursts. And these small bursts pile on top of one another and make her faith huge! And I decided that I had put restrictions enough upon prayer, upon eating, upon how my life should go.

And fat works into this how?

I ran today. This evening, actually. I thought about running. I thought about it for a little while longer and realized that I felt like running. I felt like running. And then, I put on my running clothes (seriously, it was a squeeze. The Belly was like, in a hurry to return. No slow weight gain here.) and then, I ran. I just ran. I didn't run seriously far or seriously hard. I ran down the street with my husband trailing along, walking behind me, encouraging me with his little wave and his smile. I took walk breaks to hold his hand. And then I ran some more.

I didn't make up any rules about how far I had to run or how many other times this week I was going to run. Or how because it was Tuesday and not a Monday, it wasn't really the right day to start running again.

I could beat myself up about gaining a lot of my weight back, but really I didn't work that hard to lose most of it. I did work a lot before the wedding and I'm back to wedding size now. The weight I lost while traveling was from hiking for 5 to 6 hours a day, and puking my guts out and then eating nothing but toast for 2 weeks. I didn't get high-school thin because I wanted to. I didn't really have a choice. But this time, I'm choosing it. And I'm not making rules or schedules. I'm going to stop making excuses. And I'm just going to do it.

Anne wrote a chapter on forgiveness. And forgiving myself is something I rarely do. So, I'm forgiving myself for going a little overboard on the American cuisine and for having dessert every night and for lying around doing nothing.

And I'm praying.

"Help me."

In Preparation

I mentioned before that I have secured a job teaching in Wonju, a city an hour and some change outside of Seoul. What I didn't tell you is that I'm teaching a seriously weird schedule and a serious spectrum of ages. I teach Monday thru Friday from 2:30 pm-9:00 pm. And I will be teaching (if I am remembering right) fifth graders through adults. At first, I was disappointed about the schedule, but did some thinking. Really, this works better for me as I am in a much better mood generally after the noon hour! This gives me my mornings at home with the husband. We've already been looking at some races to run when we return to Korea and we'll be able to get up early together and train together. We'll also have lunch together, which we're planning on making our "big" meal, instead of the usual big dinner. Kenny will be looking for a teaching job as well, one that has similar hours (keep your fingers crossed and those emergency prayer lines open!). So, despite my hardwired distaste for regimens and discipline in general, I am actually looking forward to a schedule and a new and interesting one at that.

However, I am also completely scared out of my mind. I am NOT a teacher. Something that the Korean English-worshipping population does not take seriously. At all. I mean, I have a year's teaching experience under my belt (which has substantially widened! I think I've gained all my weight back to be the size I was at the wedding!! AHHH! I hate America! Or myself and my lack of self-discipline and inability to delay gratification. But hating America is easier. So, yes. I hate America!!). But that year was spent barely surviving 3, 5, and 6 year olds who inspired many What the Crap Wednesday posts back in the day. I constantly felt I was letting my kids down and yeah, maybe they can read now, but I just don't feel that was my doing. That was more like a kids being kids and getting smarter by being alive kind of thing. So, I'm completely intimidated by the idea of stepping into a classroom again, as a teacher. To temper this intimidation, I decided to do some reading.

I found a book called Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire by an amazing man named Rafe Esquith. It's kind of his teaching manifesto and method in a short, well-written, and brilliantly inspiring book. He teaches in Los Angeles and every one of his students speaks English as a second language. But they do Shakespeare plays put to music that they play themselves and they make huge awesome art projects and they watch films and write about them and how they relate to their lives and they read novels and they have a classroom economic system that teaches them about how to earn, save, and spend money and THEY'RE IN THE FIFTH GRADE. They're like, 10, people. I haven't even gotten the hang of the whole earn, save, and spend thing yet! This book is serious. And it makes me wish I was a real teacher here, teaching all the subjects. But I'm not. I'm going to be a pseudo-teacher in Korea, teaching English.

This year should be better than last. I am at a serious school, Yonsei ELP, a partner with the Yonsei University in Wonju. They have a real curriculum that I will teach from, which I'm excited about. I always wondered how much better I could have done had I had sufficient teaching materials last year. And I'm not teaching spoiled, sometimes lovely, most of the time riotous small monsters called children. I mean, I guess fifth graders are still children, but you know what I mean. I'm not teaching preschool and kindergarten anymore. I read the book. Finished tonight actually. But I'm still not feeling super-duper prepared. And of course, why should I? I read one book.

But this was a good book, and I am walking away with more of a teaching ethic than actual material to teach with, which hopefully I won't need to get on my own. And there was one part that really confronted me with my own behavior lately. Esquith talks about the Six Levels of Morality and lists each level. In the sixth level, "I Have a Personal Code of Behavior and I Follow It" Level, the kids behave not for reward, not to please someone else, and not even just because they are considerate of other people. They behave because they know what the expect of themselves and they just do it. And I realized sometimes I'm not even coming close to functioning at Level VI. And it hit me here where Esquith discusses characters from Arthur Miller's play The Death of a Salesman:

Later in the play, as Willy desperately tries to understand his failures and those of his own children, Bernard shows up but is in a hurry. He is a lawyer and has a case. As he rushes off, Bernard's father mentions that the case will be tried in front of the United States Supreme Court. When Willy marvels that Bernard didn't mention this astonishing fact, Bernard's father tells Willy, "He doesn't have to. He's doing it."

And I thought of how many things I'm mentioning, but not doing. I want to shut up and just do it. And with that ladies and gents, I'm shutting up. I'm going to do.

But I'm still scared as all get out about teaching.

Required Reading

I'd like to share this with you today. 

A poem from Mary Oliver's book of poetry Red Bird. 

Maker of All Things, Even Healings

All night

under the pines

the fox

moves through the darkness

with a mouthful of teeth

and a reputation for death

which it deserves.

In the spicy 

villages of the mice

he is famous,

his nose

in the grass

is like an earthquake,

his feet

on the path

is a message so absolute

that the mouse, hearing it,

makes himself

as small as he can

as he sits silent

or, trembling, goes on

hunting among the grasses

for the ripe seeds.

Maker of All Things,

including appetite,

including stealth,

including the fear that makes

all of us, sometime or other,

flee for the sake

of our small and precious lives,

let me abide in your shadow -

let me hold on

to the edge of your robe

as you determine

what you must let be lost

and what will be saved. 

Excerpt

from The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

She looks up. "Henry, who's your favorite Beatle?"

"John. Of course." 

"Why 'of course'?"

"Well, Ringo is okay but kind of a sad sack, you know? And George is a little too New Age for my taste."

"What's 'New Age'?"

"Oddball religions. Sappy boring music. Pathetic attempts to convince oneself of the superiority of anything connected with Indians. Non-Western medicine."

"But you don't like regular medicine."

"That's because doctors are always trying to tell me I'm crazy. If I had a broken arm I would be a big fan of Western medicine."

"What about Paul?"

"Paul is for girls."

Clare smiles, shyly. "I like Paul best."

"Well, you're a girl." 

"Why is Paul for girls?"

Tread carefully, I tell myself. "Uh, gee. Paul is, like, the Nice Beatle, you know?"

"Is that bad?"

"No, not at all. But guys are more interested in being cool, and John is the Cool Beatle."

"Oh. But he's dead."

I laugh. "You can still be cool when you're dead. In fact, it's much easier, because you aren't getting old and fat and losing your hair." 

It's Sermon Sunday- Rilke Style

Yesterday I bought a toaster oven. It is awesome. I had my first piece of toast this morning, and I remembered how much I love the sound of the knife spreading butter and jam across the crackling surface of the bread. That scratching was immensely satisfying for no reason at all, and I took joy in it. 

Also, I am continuing to swim through Rilke's Book of Hours. I want to share another of his poems with you. So, dress your heart up in its Sunday best and sit down. Allow yourself to be vulnerable for a few short minutes in this day. My favorite parts are bold. 

I, 17

She who reconciles the ill-matched threads

of her life, and weaves them gratefully

into a single cloth - 

it's she who drives the loudmouths from the hall

and clears it for a different celebration

where the one guest is you.

In the softness of the evening

it's you she receives.

You are the partner of her loneliness,

the unspeaking center of her monologues.

With each disclosure you encompass more

and she stretches beyond what limits her,

to hold you. 

I feel that I am breaking the sacredness of the moment perhaps, by putting my own small and insignificant words after Rilke (I mean, who speaks in the hall after good writing is read?), but I want you to know how earnestly I am longing to weave these ill-matched threads I've been given, how desperately eager I am to stretch beyond these things that limit me (they exist in abundance), to reach over them victoriously and to hold Love. And after holding Love, to be so full up with it that I've no choice but to love others with it. Genuinely and authentically to love the ajumma stepping on my foot, the girl pushing me in order to see her reflection in the window. And most of all, to love those who love me. 

Go, stretch beyond your limits. Weave a beautiful and pleasing garment from the seemingly ill-matched threads in your life. And I'll meet you there, in Love's house.