in terms of mean and nice

Because I am too pathetic to actually pursue my dreams very emphatically, I sometimes think of writing them out. Start a blog that pretends I am indeed an artist living in an RV, traveling with mild weather.

Here would my blog about a month in....

hrumph...(clears throat for story-telling)

February 16, 2010

The other day I parked at some old acquaintances' home in Birmingham, AL. I ran over their mailbox on the way in. How did this 1985 Winnebago make it all these years and all these miles without mishap? It's the same age as me, and though I've never broken a bone, I've had plenty of scrapes & bruises. I never thought I'd drive a semi, but I feel like this is one. Wish I had company on the road. But I'm not planning to be on the road all the time--it's the freedom to move, while keep my home with me, that I like. What an unheavenly idea! Anyway, about company. I've a mind to pick up random travelers. Oh dear, how quickly I'd become a traveling homeless shelter (lovely idea by itself) and lose my dream of a traveling studio.

They told me I could hang out here all winter if I want. Of course I won't, but it's nice to know I won't be overstaying my welcome if I hang around more than a couple weeks. I can't stay here too long because I know them. Even somewhat. I've got to get away from people I know, because of my insatiable sociability, even when I don't want to be social. I've got to go somewhere where everybody is mean! Mean and rude, and then I'll be like Fine, I'll stay in my trailer and you stay in yours, and I'll write some awesome stuff on my laptop, and I'll paint some awesome paintings, and I'll record some awesome music, but darnit, if you haven't picked up & left by then, I'll have found a way to give you some downhere music or something, and we'll be friends, and we'll

sit around the campfire, have a beer,

talk about the weather

look up at the stars.

you'll tell me horrible tales because you're mean, remember

and I'll say, that is horrible...

and I'll say, one time I had a nosebleed and I smeared it all over my face.

and you'll say something else horrible and I'll say, see the stars, how they praise God while you say such things.

Anyway I'm done inventing mean neighbors, I'm not very good at it. Mean people are the ones like me to just want to be alone to be creative, and that's not really mean but it seems like it. So those aren't the mean people. Mean people are the ones who hurt other people. I'd like to stay away from people like that. Mean person comes knocking on my RV door and I say "Who's there?"

"Mean person coming to hurt you."

"Go away, I am busy being creative. I don't have time for mean people like you unless you will be nice. See? I'm mean. You shouldn't have time for me!"

Anyway here I am in Birmingham. My habits are good so far, but I'm scared they'll slip any time. I made my bed, washed the dishes, and even did some dusting that didn't need done. Now that's good housekeeping if I ever heard of it. Blech.

I have maps on the wall. I have a map with stars for all the cities in the North America where I know people. It's pretty amazing. My downhomie friends make the constellation a bit starrier than it was before 2008.

I also have a phone list I made for my current city--B'ham-- of a bunch of venues where I can regularly seek piano gigs while I'm here. And of course a big calendar next to that list. Several gigs written in.

Biggest problem is this. this isn't big enough for an art studio. Shouldn't've compromised on space! I can't paint in cramped conditions. So the beginning premise of this venture is already doomed. Gah! And sound carries too easily out of the RV, which takes away my sense of privacy when I'm composing music. So I think I'll go home now to December, 2009, and call my friend like I need to, and unbuy this RV (heaven knows where I'll find another one like it), and put on my winter clothes again... and yeah, unvisit these people in B'ham that I haven't seen in like 10 years. Sorry, B'ham friends. Goodbye.

Proportions of a song

Take it out of context and it still has its shape

(as it plays in your head) like a square is a square whether it's a ten foot square of concrete or a square on a checkerboard. A sphere can be a marble or the earth.

A sphere is not "a sphere in comparison to a square."

A square does not need a contrasting circle to be a square.

Dimensions are needed for physical objects. But in your head, dimensions are only relevant if you're comparing an object to something else. But what is certain is proportion. Proportion is what identifies a sphere or a square, or... a melody.

So it is I can have a song in my head, a song which somebody else composed and which I know well. I savor a rather accurate representation of the song, only to find, when I open my vocal chords with the intention to hum along, that the song in my head is in no key. It's free as an untethered bird in my head. I can chase it all around the circle of fifths, and it's not attached anywhere! Even the voices in the song retain their respective qualities, without being attached to a particular key, which would be impossible in the physical world. If I try to hum along out loud, I may find the song is, in dimensional terms, very low, or very high. But as long as I don't try and match the song with my voice, there is no low or high in untethered head-music, except within the song.

Thus I love roman-numerals in music theory rather than specific keys. I'm thinking people with perfect pitch would not be able to relate to the above, because as I understand it, the notes in their head correlate to real life pitches.

Madness, Mukluks, and Mortality

and snow.

I don't get much done Tuesday nights. That is, not of my list of to-do's. That's because Tuesday nights my family gets together in the living room (overflowing somewhat into the dining room) to share, in turn, what we've been reading/learning from the Bible. It's one of the more structured activities that happens in my family.

This evening as we took our turns, the sleet outside turned to snow, quickly piling up. I heard the music of snowy winds raising voice. And eventually the muffled thumping, scraping of a snowplow. And I thought, Later tonight, I am going to bundle up, and go walking in the snowfall. Even if nobody will come with. I briefly fantasized about

tromping up the street,

making the first tracks,

snow falling in my face.

At some point, it doesn't matter how well you're bundled up:

it's not enough to just be a

muffled tourist of the first snowfall. It's not THAT cold.

So you sit down or lie down in it.

You sink into the

magic that is made of

a billion tiny ice crystals.

It's not that cold. It's quiet.

Your thoughts don't even echo,

so they stop running around so fast.

Why, it would be easy to fall asleep out here, in the snow, snow still falling, world so quiet.

Can I gather up a blanket of it to carry back with me?

I am going to buy some real boots this year. So there's no boot-question keeping me from actually tromping out in the snow to eat it up.

....Well....

After family time, I came upstairs to my room. Before I had a chance to check out the snowfall accumulation (I'd love to have a minor snow emergency; we rarely get them here...) I heard something else on the skylight. Rain. A wonderful pitter-pat that did not sound so wonderful.

With a wail I ran to the window. Indeed, that 1-2 inch blanket of snow that had piled up in minutes was now on its way back to the river.

I ran downstairs to take a better look out the front door, mourning the whole way. On the porch, I thought, Maybe It Is Freezing Rain. Reaching over the railing, I trailed a frond of dripping shrubbery across my palm. It did not feel very frozen.

Stomping my feet on the mat when I walked back in, my dad said, "Hey Hannah." "What?" "On the upside, if it thaws, I can install the new storm door I just bought for the kitchen."

Knowing how old that kitchen door is, it would be a sad thing to have bought the storm door and then never actually install it til Spring.

"Okay."

"I mean, maybe it helps to think of it that way."

"Yeah, it helps... that does it for me!"

And thus I am content to wait a little longer for that dreamy blanket of snow, although who knows what will happen with this storm by morning. (We're on the edge of it).

Music, My Love

For someone who hardly ever bothers to turn iTunes on when I'm on my computer, or to utilize my cd player/radio stereo, it's perhaps an audacious claim--but I say music is in my blood. It's intoxicating, it's heartbreaking. It's the classical music I heard all the time as a kid, Dvorak's New World Symphony transfused into my system. And when all the other genres I've embraced pour into the mix, it can be like vinegar and soda; it spills onto the piano in a wretched torrent of feelings and clumsy fingers. I am sure, I am so sure that Beethoven--when he could hear--and if he could restrain his rage at my lack of technical discipline--would know exactly what I was saying tonight on the piano. I don't even begin to suggest he would have thought me a great pianist. I'm severely undisciplined. It's ideas, ideas, feelings, sentences, questions, exasperation, insistence, acquiescence, the daughters of Jerusalem.. and I think Beethoven would have understood every word. And whatever beauty is behind the speckles will stay behind the speckles unless I let go of the purely experiential aspect. Trial by fire-refine it, tear it up, remake it, rediscover it, set it free. And so far, it's far easier to leave the music in its prime state, like a child cavorting in the forest, chopping at trees, picking flowers, with no shame or conscience that it's muddy and and lost, because in that world, home is never more than two or three chords away.

Downhere Album Reviews

Here I would like to write out summaries of the albums by the Christian rock band, "downhere." Their music has profoundly impacted my life by insightfully challenging me spiritually. But their music doesn't just make me feel good about being a Christian. Downhere ministers to a crying world by practicing Christian apologetics in their lyric-writing. They address a wide scope of life questions with deep insights. Gently emphasizing that they are not and don't want to be rock stars, they perform lively shows that engage the audience with energy and spirit.

I have found each of their albums to be musically delightful and mentally engaging, but in different ways. Eventually, each album is worth owning for its specific reasons, but for starters, if you don't already own them, here are some descriptions that may help you choose an album to listen to. You can also listen to a sampling of 12 songs at www.downhere.com for free.

Downhere/2001/Word

If the first downhere album you've ever heard was Ending Is Beginning, you may notice this first album sounds especially young & exuberant. Well, it is. Since then they haven't lost their enthusiasm, but there just is something perpetually fresh about a good debut album. The album opens by setting the tone for everything that has followed in their career: "Larger Than Life." The song affirms a wonder and praise for the Creator. The line "It changes all to know You're really there" pretty much sums up why the band unceasingly writes songs of hope to a cynical, pessimistic world. These songs affirm the writers' faith, their heart of praise, the glory of God.

Several piano ballads (Calmer of the Storm, Blue) touch the heart by expressing pain and frustration in life, looking for something more. "Calmer" looks at God's sovereignty as an answer; Blue calls for you to "run to the cross, the only joy that's real." To summarize this album, I'd like to think of it as an introductory profile of the band. Thus it is fitting that the album is self-titled, even though the band members will affirm their spiritual journey did not stop there.

The last song, "All the Reasons Why" affirms the profile-like quality of the album: a little story of a band stepping out on stage not for fame, but for a higher purpose. The line "shrewd as snakes, but harmless as doves" is a quotation of Jesus when he sent his disciples out as sheep among wolves (Matthew 10:16), meaning to live a paradox of gentle meekness and spiritual sharpness. The line "songs will always find their end, but Your story never dies," is a visionary statement later affirmed by Jason Germain, one of the band's songwriters, when he discusses the song "Unbelievable" in Wide-Eyed and Simplified.

Don't miss the fun little bonus track on this cd. You have to wait a couple minutes.

So Much For Substitutes/2003/Word

Going into this album, you'll find a dramatic shift in sound from their debut. Here are strong, almost funky bass lines, and a grungier guitar sound. Visually, if you just look at the covers of these first two albums, you can get an idea for the different sounds. But don't miss the rich ballads on this album! Iliad, Walls, Last Night's Daydream, and the hidden track Home are vibrant and beautiful.

Whether or not you're enamored with the funkier sounds, don't miss the lyrics. This album progresses through aspects of the Christian journey, starting with the incarnation of Christ (What it's Like), passing through worshipful delight (Starspin) and dismal moments when we are in pain and God seems far away (Feels Like Winter.) Near the end is a call to the church to come alive and truly represent the faith (Comatose); and lastly, two purely worshipful lullabies: "Last Night's Daydream", and the bonus track, "Home." "Home" ends the album right where our hearts long to be the more we journey in our faith--our eternal home.

This album is a cohesive presentation of the Gospel of Christ to people who have known Christianity as no more than a 2-dimensional lifestyle. So Much For Substitutes doesn't whitewash the realities of Christianity, nor does it sink to its knees in self-deprication. It's simply honest.

Wide-Eyed and Mystified/2006/Centricity

This was the band's first album with the Centricity Music record label, after several years of not recording. The songs simply burst with sharing-caring energy. We're reminded to "Surrender," that "Little is Much (When God's in it--and no one can fathom the plans He holds)" and to "Come along, why don't we stir? We are the new at heart."

This is an album of revitalization for people who are spiritually weary. The music is upbeat and tasteful. The vocals vary moments of intensity with serenity. "Unbelievable" is about generations of worship music ("It won't be long and we'll need another song to sing!"). The song contains a beautiful medley of lines from great church music of the past, which is easy to miss until you catch the harmonious "For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns . . . in unbelievable love!"

Probably the best-known song from this album is A Better Way. The band faithfully performs the song as a means to share the gospel. "It's everything You promised . . . You gave everything, and 'I love you' could not be said a better way."

This collection was particularly encouraging to me in the summer of 2008 as I spent several weeks in a retirement community with my grandmother, fresh out of college and suddenly away from all my peers. I struggled with personal questions of uselessness and spiritual deafness. Then I began listening to the words of "Forgive Yourself." God had already forgiven me; I was the one who was clinging to condemnation.

Then at the end of the summer when I spent 10 days in Spain on the St. James Way pilgrimage, "Remember Me" and "The Real Jesus" continued to ring in my ears day after day. I walked past dozens of chapels and cathedrals that, to many of the hikers, were merely checkpoints along the way where they could get an extra stamp on their pilgrim's papers. I didn't choose which songs to get stuck in my head, but "Remember Me" is about the sacraments; "The Real Jesus" is looking at the commercialization of Jesus and crying for people to truly represent Christ.

In summary, this album is tied together by its first song, The More: "I met You like a little child, wide-eyed and mystified that you could love even me."

Wide-Eyed and Simplified/2007/Centricity

Mostly containing songs from Wide-Eyed and Mystified, this digital release was recorded acoustically and includes the special bonus of a spoken track for every music track. From a practical point of view, I should warn you that, at least in a car, the volume of the spoken tracks is much quieter than the music tracks. The appeal of this album is strong in the chance you get to learn the back stories of a number of songs. You also get to hear the fun "live" sound, as if you're sitting in the room with the band as they play an acoustic set. This album has no new song releases, but has the pleasurable aspect of a "behind the scenes" cd.

Thunder After Lightning: The Uncut Demos/2007/Centricity

This is the artsy cd. Just look at that cover! This is another digital release, but, unlike its acoustic predecessor, it's almost all songs not released elsewhere. These are some of the band's favorites from the long list of demos they brought into the recording process for Wide-Eyed and Mystified. Since they're demos, you'll find a less polished production at times, but not at the loss of enjoyment. It's difficult not to review each song for this album, because each one is so unique. Many of them are stylistically experimental, and some lyrics rather introspective. Songwriter Marc Martel seemed to take special pleasure in these demos playing with his vocalizing abilities, and Jason Germain has several demos with intense challenges to the status quo.

"Close to Midnight" starts out with a dark, energetic piano arpeggio, breaking into punk-like drums and a long vocalized yell. Then it settles down and we hear "We aspire to things that expire, too, like we have the time."

"Not About Wings," is gentle song about a faith that goes beyond our immediate situation. It sounds very lullaby.

More than one song is poetically centered around lightning/thunder. The song Thunder After Lightning is a perfect synthesis of introspective music and words.

The Invitation speaks to people drowning in grief. It begins, "The near miss, the car swerves, and a rewrite in destiny . . ." with the chorus, "Birth is the invitation to live, just as death is the invitation home. Joy is the invitation to walk with me all of your days." It goes on to describe the lasting grief: "Arrangements die before grieving begins. But no one stops crowding the lines. And the whole world should know as the cancerous sorrow grows--the invitation's the mess you're living in."*

"Don't Be So" is goofy compared to their usual style, but it has good, lighthearted advice: "Don't be so scared, you're doing fine--don't be so hurried, you're next in line. Don't be so worried, you'll be all right. . ."

As a special treat on this cd, the last three songs are early versions of three songs from Wide-Eyed and Mystified. "1000 Miles Apart" and "A Better Way" are very similar to their studio version, but "Jesus, Ellipsis" gives you an idea of all the rewriting it went through before it became the studio version, "Real Jesus"**. I really enjoy the earlier version's bridge: "Everyone has different answers when the question is You. I won't settle for any lesser version of You."

Not only is thunder & lightning a theme in the album, but it was released as kind of a reverberating echo of Wide-Eyed and Mystified. I don't know with certainty that the title was intended as a play on words, but a comparison of the cover of this cd and the Wide-Eyed cover would suggest so. It makes sense since most of the songs from Wide-Eyed probably came from this same pool of demos.

*The lyrics may not be totally accurate, since the digital release did not include a lyrics insert.

**Marc Martel discusses the journey of The Real Jesus on the album Wide-Eyed and Simplified.

Ending Is Beginning/2008/Centricity

This album, a musical apologetics class, is very thematically driven by hope in the resurrection. Bleed for This Love is written as if from Christ to His people through the ages--"Just when you think the story's over, you know my love is strong as ever, 'cause I'm gonna bleed for this love." The radio single "Here I Am" calls to God for direction and motivation in spite of self-doubt. "My Last Amen," another radio single, starts out with a tango-esque rhythm, and speaks to our search for something Ultimate, and how we'll never really find completion til we cross the line into eternity.

The album ends with a song reflecting on their position as singers in the spotlight, with "Beggar Who Gives Alms." Thematically, the song is similar to "All The Reasons Why" from their self-titled album. Here again, downhere affirms their desire to be ministers, vessels of good news of the lovely hope they find in Christ.

The cd includes as a bonus track, "How Many Kings", a hit single from Centricity's artist compilation album, Bethlehem Skyline. If you download Ending is Beginning from iTunes, you get still another bonus track, "Break My Heart," which quotes the words of Bob Pierce, founder of World Vision: "Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God." Downhere is a faithful supporter of World Vision, and I think this song affirms their passion for ministry.

How Many Kings: Songs for Christmas/2009/Centricity

The band's own descriptions of this album are as good as it gets:

This blog was a teaser-tormenter when they first completed the album, and this one gives more descriptions upon the album's release earlier this fall.

My own opinion is simply, you should listen to it. Verily: if you have a set of good studio monitors, then you must needs turn up the volume for God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen. Sit back. Then, you might as well keep listening with the volume up, because this self-produced album by downhere has incredible dimension to it.

*Release dates & record label information from jesusfreakhideout.com

Random pictures from The Camino.

We would walk with these heavy packs, down a regular country road. Sometimes we had our own path. It was the Way of St. James, an old Catholic pilgrimage. A village every half hour sometimes, or every couple hours. One or two bigger towns each day.

Before

dawn, we could see our breath, even in early August. Our warmest clothes were our pajamas

and fleece vests. Everything else was shorts and

tank tops. So we moved quickly past sleeping farms as the air stung our bare arms.

Crunch, crunch our feet went on the gravel in the dark. Or, on pavement, quiet footsteps mixed with the clattering

of our walking sticks. Street lights. Then dawn would come, the sun would rise, gilding everything ahead of us clear gold. The air would warm. We'd stop for breakfast, nibbling a bit of granola or eating a cereal bar.

The

path wound curiously up and down

hills, between bluffs overlooking pastureland before joining

the country road again. Here and there we'd come to a

magnificent tree which must surely have a story. How many thousands of travelers had rested in that shade, thinking holy and unholy thoughts? And simple thoughts of pure praise and pleasure in the great outdoors.

Many travelers carried cell phones. I'm glad we didn't have that option. Being completely severed from the electronic world of communication was a retreat that fewer and fewer people get to experience. Initially, you wonder if anything's happening online. Then you realize you are glad you don't have to check it. With joy you realize what a meaningless thing all that time consumption is.

Here, here in the

eucalyptus forest--

here, in the highlands of Galicia with a piper in the distance helping you along--here, sitting beside the path exhausted-- is what matters--pressing along in a community of strangers unified by a goal--a city we're striving for--or even just a shower & bed at the end of the day.

Call me weird, but my most earthily-memorable part was the shower & bed part. Sleeping in the public hostels. The alberges; refugious. Hostels can be crazy places I hear, and I wouldn't mind experiencing even a more typical European hostel someday. These were tame compared to so

me stories I've heard. You paid for a bed space, you got your shower. You assessed your luggage and rearranged it and packed it again.

You rested for a while and then went out for supper, then you came back and pretty much

went to sleep around dark. Sometimes you saw things you didn't mean to see, but you didn't mean to see and everyone understood that and cloaked themselves in the modesty of ignoring.

There's something wonderfully cozy about being surrounded by snoring people. People whom you've chosen to trust, because you've all committed at some level to this journey, even if some people seem suspicious in nature. I think I find the hostel experience so memorable because 1) it did not plague my conscience/morals 2) I know it would bother a lot people that I wish I could share the experience with. The discrepancy between 1) and 2) intrigue me. For some reason I've never been bothered by the idea of sleeping in the same room as a mixed group of people. Maybe most people feel the same deep inside, but I don't want to assume. And a lot of people just like their privacy, regardless of their convictions. I like my privacy in everyday life, but when I'm in adventure mode, I just thrive on the chaos of people being in each others' way.

And then before you know it people are whispering in the dark and shouldering their bags. The room is almost empty before we know it, so we turn the light on and adjust the bandaids on our blisters and decide which pair of dirty socks to put on before we fill up our water containers and head out. Who needs the ace bandage most today? I'm putting some lemonade powder in my camelback today. Remarkably, after being dead-dog-tired the night before, we're once again ready to march ahead into the new day.

Fever sleep

Pictures...twirling, layering, half-exposed

I'll join in, I'll help!

What am I helping?

focus...

why don't I know what this is?

why can't I think?

I'm really insane..I'm not thinking... I can't see...I'm scared...

I'll help... I'm helping...

at Feed the Children... is that where we are? Is that sense?

I can't tell.

Somewhere, with people, busy.

the partial exposures won't line up.

The others know what we're doing.

Why do they know and I don't?

Why can't I get my senses together?

What is?

Is this grayness-blur who I am?

I awoke and knew I was in bed, and dimly realized that I live in a reality that makes so much more sense. This would fade. But it didn't want to. I couldn't shake my head clear. I took my hands and clenched my skull, and it seemed to help. And I saw it was only 1:30 a.m.

Is my brain swollen with fever?

Am I damaging it by squeezing it?

What a funny thought.

I'm squeezing the pictures into focus by squeezing my head.

I really have a fever, don't I...

there is nothing in the pictures, is there...

it's all nothingness, almost-meanings.

Stop trying to put them together...

Mastermind

Something I've been thinking about. It is not enough for the Divine Creator to have 'the greatest magic'... to create something out of nothing, it wasn't like a magical "let there be light." If it was as simple as that, then there would've had to be a pre-existing *something* which could obey (Ok, so maybe "nothingness" could obey and become "something").

I'm driving at the unfathomable brilliance of God's mind. In creating light, He created every property of light. The properties of different frequencies. The anomalies. The speed.

In creating plants, he created every property of the plants. Every. single. property. The root system, the cells of the root system, the parts of the cells..the molecules...atoms...so on... Even the properties of edibility.

"Let there be" was no wish proclaimed lavishly by a very wealthy king, with servants who could make those things happen. No. God, in his omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence created a master blueprint of all blueprints. I don't know if He created the entire plan at the same moment he said "let there be." But without it, he was just Very powerful, not the Creator of all things.

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--------I shouldn't make this be one blog.... but I am. I'm sorry. Big leap here:

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Snuggly

There's something perversely idyllic about being in bed with thick blankets and no obligation to do anything. Because you're sick. I'm not saying I like having a headache or shivering madly, but those feelings are strongest when I am sick and not bedded down. Here I am, not ready to go to sleep for the night, and suddenly there's no frenzy. No frenzy that says, "I'll just skim these blogs, even though I see they are very interesting." No frenzy that says, "I'll feel ready to go to bed when I've made some calls, written another entry in my scrap journal, put away my laundry, written a song." you name it. It's like life comes to a screeching halt, and in the silence I hear better, listen better, and face my delusions.

The thing is, once you're snuggled down in bed like that, how do you know when you're well? 'Cause there are those days, you know, when you just feel allergic to being awake & out of bed.

In Which My Car Is Marginalized

As I pulled out in front of the semi, I realized it was coming on very quickly, not just 60 mph, and for a millisecond I thought I should get into the far lane, but he beat me to it.

"That's fine," I said to my carpooling sister. "Now I don't need to accelerate quickly (I think I need to add some oil to my car)."

The semi flew past and got over in front of me. He was carrying a giant Thing. What it was I do not know, but it was a very big Something... somewhat conical shaped and looked like it was solid iron. This constituted a wide load, and there was a corresponding pickup truck carrying the "wide load" banner.

"What is that?" I said to my carpooling sister. "It looks like a giant... um... I don't know." I thought of the noses of rocket ships and submarines but doubted the idea.

Feeling slightly sheepish for pulling out when I did, I moseyed along behind the Giant Thing and his bodyguard. Lots of traffic passed us, and I observed that the wide load wasn't keeping right-ish in the slightest. I smiled amiably at the driver's confidence. Traffic had to jolly well hug the leftish side of the highway to go around. I even saw a regular semi lean left as it passed.

Finally, as we approached a red light, I decided I was done cruising behind these guys, and swung into the empty left lane. Then a strange thing happened. The escort pickup truck chose that particular moment to get partway into the left lane in front of me!

"Okay...?" I said with a bemused titter. The light turned green and the pickup truck returned to his spot in the right lane.

"Oh," I said, "I guess he didn't want me passing while we're at a light." Still in the left lane, I pressed my foot to the accelerator. Only for the pickup truck to get in front of me again!

"Dude!" I said, in amused frustration. "I saw other people passing earlier!....sheesh Fine!" So I got back into the right lane, and so did the pickup truck.

I was going to make a right turn in a mile anyway (to get a car wash), so no big deal to be forced to stay in the right lane, eh? As I shrugged this thought to my sister, several cars passed me and the pickup truck and the Big Thing. "Seriously!?" I sneered.

I turned to V. "He's mad at me for pulling out in front of him! That's the only explanation I can think of! Do you think he'd seriously do that?"

We drove on, and I said, "It's like an animal!... they are strange animals!"

A bit later I said, "when we get next to him, please give him a long stare... and tell me if he's looking at us and looking mad!" (I was kind of afraid to make eye contact, myself).

We got to the light where I was going to turn right. Traffic slowed as it approached the red light, and I wasn't quite to the turn lane yet, so I waited, not wanting to do the slightest thing to offend those delicate temperaments in front of me. A big pickup truck barreled past me on the right shoulder. "Hey!" I exclaimed. A car behind me did the same thing. Now, pretty much at the turn lane, I moved over. And, like a strangely predictable mother bear, that escort truck moved over to block me! I stopped (for the traffic was stopped and now that he was blocking, I had to stop.) I laid on the horn for a halfway satisfying BJEEEP. He ignored me, did not budge.

"Now that he's so close to the other truck, maybe you can get by," V said.

"Uhh, yeah I don't want to mess to closely with him." Somehow I didn't doubt that he'd feel free to ram me if I insisted. And then somehow it would turn out it was my fault because this was a big government Something and because I'd displayed such poor driving skills earlier, it was the escort's duty to make sure I didn't get another chance to pull in front of the big truck. Maybe if they'd hit me there would've been a ginormous explosion.

Intimidation is a funny thing. If I forced my way past that guy, I somehow wouldn't have been one bit surprised if he like riddled my car with a machine gun. or just leaned over and smushed us. Just by insistingly pulling in front of me, I believed he Meant Business. Except-- I did have the nerve from a somewhat safe distance to bleat my horn at him.

When the light turned green, for a moment I thought the pickup truck was going to leave his Wide Load and turn right, in front of me, just to prolong the punishment! But he eased on through the stoplight, and I was free to continue on my way to get the car wash. That took about ten minutes, so back on the highway I didn't encounter those people again. I'm glad I happened to be stopping off, or it would have been a strange trip home, submissively crawling behind the Big Thing the whole way.

V said, "Maybe it was the semi driver, not the pickup driver, who's mad at you. And he radioed back to the pickup driver."

I suppose to a couple of bored but tense drivers, maneuvering the US highway system with a huge and heavy load, I was one of those blights of bad drivers, who they wholeheartedly wish they could just wipe out. Well, I like to tell myself they had a really good explanation for not letting my car pass. But I think I can now understand how road rage comes about! I felt so infuriated that for one silly miscalculation, that guy was taking it in his own hands to make me pay.

I guess too, in a small way, I understand more what it feels like to be discriminated against.

Living in the Season

I stayed awake, flitting from hope to hope,

thinking there was still something to find on earth, a completion of the day.

Then I realized I had sowed little to be expecting a harvest.

I had wandered the fields looking for something to eat

when it was planting time.

I bought the things I needed, but I did not put them to use;

I ate food that was meant for tomorrow.

I sat up all night trying to find an end to the day, but found it not

and the new day took no pity on me.

I hated what was near and wanted what I could not have.

I loathed my memory of throwing words to the wind.

My eyes grew dry, but I did not wash them.

I stored up an inheritance

which would benefit the living, not the dead--

and I pondered what I would find when death found me.

But in the end I knew this--

a woman rises up in the morning because it is a new day

and the sunrise demands it.

But she only relinquishes the day

when she remembers that the answer is to fear God.

There's no completion on earth.

It is best to let go of a moment as readily as you've taken it in your hand.

The moments don't even know themselves.

But God knows every moment

and it is He who established

a time to wake and a time to sleep.

New Day

(softly

slowly

slowly, still)

You wander like a shadow left by

leaves upon the wind

you drink the air that many haven't found.

There you are reminding yourself that

logic isn't always just

There you are, you carry gentleness

to the sinners and condemned

they don't know why you're there

but something's changed

like midnight brings new day.

New day.

Sunrise coming.

Clouds are breaking

Hardship we are overcoming

In your love ourselves forgetting

New day.

Three times I did deny you

when you called, when you knocked,

when you lay halfway dead

but you did not deny the ones who came to you

You'd choose the least, the meek, the fool--

my pride you can't abide

you may not keep track of unpaid dues

but you are drawn to fools

You show them a new day

Midnight brings new day.

New day.

Will you look at me and see a fool

will you take me, love me, as your own

will you walk with me

talk with me

always?

Can I copy you-

be like you-

-emulate your gentle way-

walk like you

talk like you

follow you right into

the new day?

Sunrise coming. Clouds are breaking.

sunrise coming. clouds are breaking.

.....

Garnished empty flasks; the bread of life.

I don't know much about the band Within Temptation, but listening to a cd today I relished the celtic-metal sound. There's such range between the choral heights and the heavy strummed chords on the electric bass. Some metal music I think of as dirty silver and black and red, but this I'd say is more of a midnight blue with touches of silver and brown. It lures the senses with the aura of magic and mystery. Simply, painfully, lovely voice contrasted with the subterranean growl of metal music.

There seem to be cultures of artists that recreate something that never was--a dark lacey celtic/gothic society, as if there was a time in the middle ages when gods swept shadows over the earth and the Lord of the Rings really happened and the air had a darkly satisfying chivalry cloaked in mists and witchcraft. Everything was sadly perfect. Hearts could speak across miles. Bleeding hearts, moonlight. Violins strain to say the truth that they are only subjects, not gods, nor spirits. The cry in the dark is worshipful of something unknown. You get the picture--from the same fantasy come vampire romances, slow dances with suppressed evil.

Today I listened to the cd and didn't think through the above (til now as I described it), but simply enjoyed the sounds; sound waves that are tall, deep, and wide. Frankly beautiful. I went about my business folding laundry and picking up on some words now and then. I felt a leaning towards overcast-Sunday-afternoon feeling, the feeling of searching, reaching, embracing for something astoundingly meaningful. This happens sometimes when I forget myself and try to lean on music (of any kind) instead of just enjoying it.

So I say I know very little about the band I was listening to, but what I observed was this. Musicians singing little folk ditties... or opera with an enormous pyrotechnic metal choir...are not only looking for satisfaction, but sharing that search. The music seems to promise satisfaction, but it's not the singer that's really satisfied, nor the audience. Even the music is never truly satisfied--no people can truly, completely, satisfy a song. But in the attempt, people stretch and grow. The harder they search, the deeper twists the pain that says just one melody away is the one big--very very very big--beautiful--answer to the emptiness exposed by unbridled fantasy.

I appreciate the series my pastor is preaching on Ecclesiastes. So far he has observed these things about Ecclesiastes. 1) The search for ultimate significance is real. 2) The things we generally do in that search are usually not bad (eating chocolate, coaching little league, parenting children), they are just empty-- of the final answers to life's questions. 3) Death is the test of this. You're going to die: whatever you accomplish, whatever you enjoy, doesn't stop death, and what you do dies with you--at best your children and grandchildren remember.

Someone on the radio, speaking on Ecclesiastes, listed the names of some people from 100, 50, 10 years ago who were extremely famous in their time. The names already meant nothing to me, and presumably nothing to most other listeners. If you live for your own legacy, futility will overtake you sooner or later and you'll experience bouts of terror at your insignificance.

Yet the sum of Ecclesiastes is not to reject good things in life. It is good to enjoy your life, but you'll find significance in fearing God and following His commandments. This is where a sense of home-and-dinner-on-the-table comes.

Using "Where the Wild Things Are" as a parable for Ecclesiastes, the pastor asked us to spend the week thinking, "What is my rumpus?" (Rumpus=hyperactive boy galumphing around with a bunch of tame monsters without mother telling him not to). Chances are we're not looking for meaning in bad things. Just in empty things.

Many dear people with longing hearts are afraid to believe in such a mighty God. The musical cry for meaning is its own evangelism. Am I the only one who feels so alone? Let me test the people around with an invocation of wildly lonely feelings. Do you feel it? can you fight it? Does meaningless keep you awake at night and asleep in the morning, or do you deafen yourself to the silence by self-discipline? Loneliness-- a silent religion. The emptiness, first feared, then explored, and never understood, becomes a vast deity to worship, news to spread. Perhaps in keeping with Nietzsche, 'When Zarathustra was alone, however, he said to his heart: "Could it be possible! This old saint in the forest hath not yet heard of it, that God is dead!'"

Empty, meaningless is everything under the sun--meaningless is a world that was never created but simply happened. Meaningless is an earth whose geometric center of a great empty universe is probably an illusion--as each human is caught midway between east and west horizons. Meaningless is everything if indeed there is no master.

But to humble oneself before Supreme authority--to be obedient to a good and fierce Father, to love and admire the Keeper of life, to love created things through the lens of admiration of the Creator----vanquishes the fear of the yawing black depth that is ... meaninglessness. You really don't need to be remembered on earth. The eternal Father remembers you. To the one who finds emptiness in the void, I say look not in the void and you will not find such emptiness. Fear God, follow His commands. The puzzle of life doesn't just fall into place when you do this, no! but neither need you fear the conundrum when you already know who wins in the end.

Leaf journal, musical journeys

Often I stop and look at a beautiful leaf, and then I pick it up and put it in whatever book I have handy. So far I haven't arranged a good way to preserve them, but I keep some of them with me until they fall apart. Last fall I picked up a couple leaves from my running route. One was simply beautiful. Another was not exciting--small, oval, and speckly, with a story. I call it my interruption leaf, because I was walking with my roommate's mom, and we were praying together. In the middle of her prayer I stopped walked and backed up a few steps and said, "oh, that leaf looked metallic somehow, it was so beautiful!" We found the leaf and I realized it only looked metallic because of the lighting and the speckles. I felt very ashamed and wicked, so I kept the leaf as a reminder that I can't always "go ride bikes". The leaf is still in the binder cover I slipped it into, cracked and almost completely brown.

Leaves seem to mark various occasions, so I will paste them into a large multimedia journal and write the synopsis of the occasion.

Location and sensory experience have a powerful connection. There's no way to draw a picture of this, but when I return to a place, I remember the music I listened to and the conversations I had. Today I walked out on a pier on Lake Michigan, which brought to surface memories of some poignant walk-n-talks. Once at night, and I got my first glimpse of the dazzling Chicago skyline by night. Another time I made a spur-of-the-moment visit to a friend because I was passing by Chicago, and for that afternoon we were really good friends. Sometimes we are not so conversational. Life gives moments, not always hours, and rarely lifetimes.

One little stretch of an unremarkable highway should be the same as other stretches, but somehow my brain recognizes the geographic location, and I'll remember belting out Downhere songs last time I drove past that light pole, or exit, or patch of trees.

And in my head is a road map. Red highlighter shows my routes to Michigan and Illinois, yet the highlighter has ridiculous amounts of metadata that's invisible to the naked eye; it is simple... known. It's known that this spidery shape represents a community of brothers and sisters in Christ. It's known that on this or that trip I sang myself hoarse; on that route I exhorted my friend to get away from her dangerous boyfriend, as a terrible slush storm slowed our progress homeward; this route draws memory of a beautiful pattern of clouds that seemed to alternate yellowish and bright-bluish.

And people can be colors. I know one person who is the color blue. Doesn't look blue. Just as the same identity. And today I realized I can't arbitrarily make blue my color, even though I like it enough to wear it regularly. So I bought a more suiting color.

A road trip of three hours is short. It's only a couple of cds. Only a couple of good full length conversations (complete with dozens of snapshot diversions). I could drive and drive; only, if every occupant in the car is blissfully asleep, I sometimes get jealous and ease the car onto the rumble strips.

This weekend has been a Robert Fulghum weekend. "It makes me happy to see there is a Robert Fulghum book in your bathroom," I said to my roommate at her new apartment. Last winter my "Everything I Know I Learned in Kindergarten" lived in the bathroom. When I got home from my road trip, what should be lying conspicuously on my laptop but yet another Robert Fulghum book, a gift from my sister who knows I like his writing? (How I would love to converse with that man.)

Life tends to flock.

"Don't Blame The Mirror" a book. And my stream of conscious follow-up.

"Have you ever noticed that it's often the women who shop the most fiercely who make the worst errors?"

"There could be so much loneliness in going back to an era your friends have all left."

For a laugh I picked up a book on appearance/beauty from 1967. The perspective is middle class, strongly opinionated, sometimes hilarious (the main author was a TV show host). The late 60's are easy to relate to--some current trends were just beginning; the 50's were over. Although we no longer have women wearing hair rollers in public, the 60's already had string bikinis for women to gossip about. Etc.

The thing is, there are some true gems of wisdom that the authors probably didn't even intend. Because I am addicted to finding practical application for advice, I can't help generalizing some of the ideas. The first quote continues, "The people who have to drive a hard bargain, who have to look in every store, and have to try on everything--they're the ones who get alligator shoes with the mismarkings, the bag with the flaw in it." This is kind of what I've been learning about relationships. That kind of analytical-perfection-idealism is a really killjoy, dreamkiller. I know. I'll always analyze things, I'm sure, but I'm learning to keep my mouth shut when I'm about to squash spontaneity with an irrelevant look at "the other hand".

The second quote is from a chapter on plastic surgery. She's all for it if it's for professional reasons. But she doesn't think just anybody should get it. "...When I'm alone I have to admit that I take my hands and I push up the lines around the mouth and under the eyes to see how I look. But I realize when I do this that I am looking at a face from the past and I don't really want to go back there. There could be so much loneliness in going back to an era your friends have all left."

Sometimes I wish I'd gone through college differently. Been more honest with my dreams. Been more ambitious rather than grade-conscious. Sought out mentorship from my professors, instead of always showing them what I already knew. But I had a great college experience; I wouldn't trade the phases of learning I went through. I wouldn't trade the dating experience I had. Unless I have a specific reason to continue education, I can't hang on to that world. If I wish I'd been a more humble learner then, the answer is to be a more humble learner in my current situation.

"The thing I worry about though is the sexual drive that makes some women go about changing their features. If she thinks she will suddenly become attractive to a man and be the sex symbol of the neighborhood just because her nostrils have been shortened, I think this is a woman who needs psychiatry more than plastic surgery..."

"...And the indiscriminate desire to re-create the past through plastic surgery is something that worries me because a personality change does go on and must go on through all the phases of a woman's life. And if through surgery her appearance gets out of step with her personality, I think she's going to have emotional trouble..."

"...But there is a very distinct warning I must sound. There are people who seek under the guise of plastic surgery a new social, marital, economic, professional, or sexual rebirth. ...If [her] bad nose is turned into an excellent nose, yet [s]he remains unfulfilled, [s]he has just been cheated of [her] single most satisfactory excuse for [her] personal failure."

I'm an experimenter, and sometimes I wish I lived in the city so I could do crazy things with my hair and people wouldn't worry that I was having an identity crisis. But I can't deny that sometimes I've imagined that a change to my appearance would give me a new chance at life. To lose weight, to get a new wardrobe. In fact, it is sometimes true that external changes can effect life changes, if the change makes you less self-conscious. But if the change makes you less yourself, more self-conscious, then you're in trouble. I am gradually phasing in a new wardrobe as well as making other changes in my life. The reason is that I have decided to take steps toward being a responsible adult. So many of my choices are colored by just a few passing words of a dominant relative or friend. So I'm in the belated process of figuring out what I like, where I want to go, what I want to create.

Told a dear friend of mine-- "It's like a sort of selfishness. But not a selfishness that puts yourself above others--but... puts yourself above yourself." Very sensical in my head...but perhaps requires some defining. What I mean in the second phrase, is that you're getting off your arse in order to be more fully you... in order to participate more fully in what life brings.

Sometimes it's helped me in life to accept who I am ...as I am. But there's a downfall if that goes too far. Because... frankly... you can't NOT be you. In other words, your everyday choices do affect who you are. If you read all the time, you're one who reads all the time. And what you read will affect who you are. If you mimic somebody, it's still you because you're the one mimicking. If you decide to go to a coffee shop once a week, that becomes part of who you are--and, even after you stop, may be a nuance in your personality.

People rise out of terrible circumstances saying "this is not me! I am more than my past, I am more than my abusive parent, I am more than my own bad habits!" But in mediocre circumstances, it's easier to just stay put. "This probably is me. And how dare I be dissatisfied with who I am? Others have it much worse. This is me, I need to accept that this is and will be me. If I have this or that selfish urge, I might as well follow it because that's me. And others need to accept me the way I am."

I do think people need to accept each other. But not so much "the way they are" as "for who they are." And in regards to one's own past, there's a difference between accepting what was (which is good to do), and accepting the effects of that past on the future. Progress is marked by acceptance despite any number of failures, plus an optimism that will always keep trying, will keep exploring, keep trusting in God's goodness and ability to change you from the inside out.

I have quite a list of things I've failed to do. But nibble by nibble, I'm throwing away the trash, tuning into my very own dreams, and gradually, by the grace of God, changing bad personality habits. One thing I have to bear in mind, being so analytical, is that it's more efficient to do something inefficiently, than to not do something at all because you're so busy figuring out the most efficient way!

The most amazing feature of grace is patience. The patience of God. The patience of people. I would not be so patient with myself. God is great.

Another Revisiting Session

This evening I went and walked around the yard of the place I moved out of 17 years ago, with the owner not home. I didn't go in the barn, though, just peeked in. The owner as much as said I could come any time, but I was hoping he'd be home so I could go in the barn and maybe even the house.

I oohed and ahed over different trees that are slightly more rugged now but mostly the same... and a dip in the ground that I suspect is the remains of a garden I dug... because my idea of digging a garden was to jump on the shovel to cut out squares of sod, then pick up those squares of sod and stack them to the side. There also may be a nest of marbles in that spot.

Some part of me even imagines that somewhere in the house is still a little matchbox police car that plays a siren when you press the wheels. Because in our last few months there, I lost track of that car, which was by far the coolest matchbox car we had. And I latched onto the idea that, certainly when we moved, it would turn up because all the furniture would be pulled away from the walls, etc. But I wasn't home when the final move was made.

I would really really love to walk around inside the barn. I don't have to, though. By walking around the yard, and barely peeking in the barn door, I am assured that my memories of the barn are sound. They are so whole, that it's almost as good as if I actually did get to go in there.
It's just unbelievable to me that our minds can store such vivid realities into memory. The entire property could have been, say, burned to the ground. And there my memory would be, uncertain, but there. But it just so happens to be there, almost exactly like it used to be, and so my memory is verified.

I left a gushy note in the owner's mailbox thanking him for making the place beautiful again, briefly cataloging my walk around the yard. Because there are certain ideals I hold regarding community and human interaction, and one part of that embracing Narrative as a natural part of communication. The mother in me says "even if it weirds people out, there are less detectable, but more long-term, good effects."

Portrait of a Marriage

by Pearl Buck.

I'm sitting here recovering.  I never weep for books.  For years I haven't even been reading much.  But I picked this up at a book sale a few weeks ago, and started it this morning on the way to work (my sister was driving).  I read it at break, and lunch, and break, and when I got home from work I didn't get past the first couch in the front door, but sat down and read the rest of the book for another three hours.  It's not a fairy tale, and yet it is.  It's a genuine fairy tale, in all its small tragedies and wonders of beauty.  Some folks were outside choosing a kitten to take off our hands.  My sisters asked if I was going to the coffee shop to play Dutch Blitz, and I said Maybe.  Mom called "supper" and I didn't come.  And as the last chapters wound up, I just sat there with tears running down my face, and they are still, and I'm not sure exactly why. 

But it feels so good to cry.

non sequiter(z)

Sometimes it gives me deep satisfaction to sport a pen-ink tattoo on my arm.  A whole sleeve, even.  But I don't happen to want a permanent tattoo.  Actually, impermanence is what I love about such "tattoos".  And hair dye, too--eventually that goes away.  Things like that.  Today I have a long curly flame down my arm.

Random notes accumulate on that limb throughout the day; while I'm scanning I don't have time to write thoughts or to-do's in a proper place.  Besides, my arm stays with me.  It's always fun after work to decipher the symbols & abbreviations I used.  Like, what does "wb list" mean? I knew it wasn't Warner Bros, or water balloon... finally my sister said, "White board?" and I said Yes! I was reminding myself to buy or research the items I'd written on my white board.

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I have a pair of sturdy hiking sandals I bought spring of 2008.  I broke them in and wore them on the 150 miles (250 km) I hiked in Spain.  <--Unforgettable.  I still wear the sandals for walking; running not so much.  They stink terrible.  Just like nacho cheese doritos (I kid you not).

The route I walk here--a block on your basic county grid--may not be special because I've lived here most of my life, but there are some absolutely perfect views of Northern Indiana farmland, & a little lake.  I was joking with my sister today as we walked.  "If we were on a country road in England, we'd be oohing and ahing about that hilly pasture over there.  We'd say, "Look at that weird tree root!"  "Oooh, look at that farmhouse--we should move here!"  "Ooh, look at the cows!"  Yeah.  We pretty much would.  

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I own about seven movies.  They are all enjoyable in their own ways.

The Sheik (& The Son Of The Sheik)--ancient silent films!!! Starring Rudolph Valentino, long forgotten, once so adored.  He died very young.  A must see, as a curiosity, if you've never watched a full-length silent film.  There is so much culture (American entertainment in 1921; their romanticized views of Arabic culture, and what faces made movie stars.

Everything is Illuminated-- Apparently this movie is only the shell of the book, but I think it's better that way.  A poignant story.  The soundtrack includes great jewish/russian sounding music.  And hilarious quotes.

Lucky Break--Nobody's heard of this one... It's about a couple guys in jail for being dumb criminals, and their plot to escape, involving the jailbirds putting on a musical written by the prison warden...for the community... and the main character falls in love with the anger management teacher.

Nim's Island--got it cheap, enjoyed it.  Fun kid's movie.

The Flying Scotsman--got it cheap at the same time as above.  First movie besides Mansfield Park in which I've seen Johnny Lee Miller.  It's sort of a documentary about a guy breaking a biking record, but it's a story, and as such, endearing.

Benny & Joon--it's just one of those movies you've gotta see sometime.

Music Man--Bought it last Saturday at a book sale.  Haven't seen it since I was about 6.

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things I cannot fully be as long as I wish I could be all of them:

a painter

a history teacher

a concert pianist

an wilderness trip leader

a psychologist

an author

a computerized music composer

an actress

an apologist

a plant biologist

a landscaper

an accountant

with fluency in Spanish, German, Welsh, Scottish, Pidgin.

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stream of conscious poem written at an outdoor concert.

clouds sail in past

the taller buildings in town.

And the band in Freiman's Square

sings for all weather.

It's a smalltown city I can see

by the everyday folks gathered.

No freak show of individuality--

just ordinary folk gathered to

enjoy Sunday afternoon.

People find their way--

but I won't give credit

to evolution for that.

Hats.  They dazzle.  They awaken

the mind to a personality.

A child dances freely,

but abandons the dance to

splash in the fountain--carefree.

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If you are reading this, I hope you

have a fantastic day tomorow.

rest on God's amazing grace more every day.

thank somebody you love for being there.

Sleep well.