Today feels exquisitely like fall. The sunlight filtering through the crisp coolness of autumn mist, and the city's austere beauty beginning to soften with the glimmer of Christmas lights and lighthearted holiday shoppers. Add in a toffee nut latte, and the only thing missing is space at a coffee shop to actually sit and study.
But alas, the influx of tourists and shoppers means that back to college I must go, and sit in the dark basement room of the MCR to do my reading. We'll see how long I last.
I went to a play this past Wednesday, almost a week ago now. The Oxford Playhouse was running a special offer: a night of free theatre to those under 26, so I took them up on it. I was not overly impressed.
The set was gorgeous. Desks in the center of a library, with shelves reaching up into the recesses of a cavernous, Oxford-like dome.
But from the first line, the acting was off. Not horribly so, but the lines were rushed, mechanic. Spewed at a desperate pace. And I'm still a little unsure why. I mean, I understand why the actors were struggling to connect (when you're trying to jump on a cue without leaving pause for a breath, it's hard to make thought process believable), but I'm not sure why the objective was crazed-pace dialog. I thought perhaps it was a significant aspect of the characters' personalities, but the manic energy wasn't upheld with enough consistency to be believable.
And though the actors warmed up as the night progressed, they never truly recovered from the beginning's recitation. Because the audience failed to see the thoughts behind the lines during those first crucial moments, it was impossible to get a true read on the characters and their objectives. Almost no one is stable in this play, so each mood shift requires more, not less, intentionality from the actors. Otherwise it seems that all we're watching is a loosely sequential series of random actions, dialog, and tragedy.
And while this seems to be a play aiming to frighten with ambiguity -- with the questions it leaves unanswered -- I in no way believe the goal to be leaving the audience uninterested in answers that were never there to begin with.
There were also some issues with blocking, the milder of which I can forgive, but you can't hold a gun within reach of a boy twice your size, recite a monologue, and expect me to believe that he wouldn't have tackled you senseless. He thinks he's going to die, for crying out loud.
Having said all that, there were some fantastic supporting roles, including one chap who looked (and acted) exactly like Jude Law in Wilde.
I just spent an hour and a half listening to Laurence Harwood remember his godfather, C.S. Lewis. His father, Cecil Harwood, was one of Lewis's best friends, walking companions, and debate partners: a man C.S. Lewis literally rolled on the floor with, choked by laughter. For those of you who've read Surprised by Joy, Cecil is the friend described as a Horatio in an age of Hamlets.
Laurence shared his personal correspondences with Lewis. Showed us the pictures his godfather had drawn in the margins. Pictures of Magdalen (the place "like a castle" where Lewis lived), bears and angels from That Hideous Strength, Lewis in baggy trousers that made him "look like a sailor," and the brown bunny he'd been watching from his window.
Talked of his memories of Lewis's visits to his family's home. The boom of his voice in the mornings; the sound of his bellyflops in the pond. Shared letters written to his mother on the topic of love (and being a good godfather), to his father when his mother grew sick with cancer, to himself when he failed his Christ Church exams.
And always, always, that sense of someone wholly present. His childlike joy. Throwing himself onto the floor to play games with Laurence and his siblings, not patronizingly, but for the sheer delight of knowing what children were enjoying, and enjoying it himself. The ability to be all things to all people, even children.
And, may I say, Tolkien's reputation as a walker may have been unjustly tarnished. According to Cecil, on walking tours, Lewis's enjoyment of nature vied only with one thing: his enjoyment of conversation, most of which he carried on himself. So much for his reputation as a "serious" walker. =)
Walking to the river this morning, alone and in the dark, was like stepping into some primordial past. The stars blazing above Christ Church, only to be blotted out by the trees growing dense and dark on either side of the path. And the river itself, rising out of a rolling mist that shrouded bank and distance in the mysterious grey of pre-morning light.
The puff of breath, the sting of frozen fingers, red with cold, as the sun rose over frost covered docks, and the white geese preened themselves on the ice-covered shore. And in the fields of Christ Church meadow, the deer could be seen bounding between the lumbering cows, frost-covered in their crystallized pasture, as the spires of Oxford rose behind them, gleaming gold in the early morning light.
And that, I suppose, is why students rise early from warm beds, and walk through deserted streets, weaving through trucks unloading merchandise on Cornmarket, to row in the dark on the river Isis.
Some pictures of my Oxford space, taken when I first arrived. I've since decorated (and rearranged) my room, so this was just first impression documentation. Hopefully you're properly impressed.
interesting wood designs in the ceiling
oh the beauty of bare bulbs . . .
miniature table, perfect for afternoon tea and biscuits
the original room setup, currently reversed
the kitchen with the baby windows
(but free washing, and bright overhead)
our incredibly disgusting table, that no amount of scrubbing
will clean (we're investing in a table cloth)
the narrow hallway
and last but not least, the bathroom
(which I'm sure you all really wanted to picture)
Warning: forthcoming moment of intense geekiness. All those not interested in feminist theory, this is your chance to run away.
So, I just read a transcription of a talk given by one of our Women's Studies conveners (at the London Feminist Network's "Feminar"), addressing the difference between radical feminism and queer theory's use of the term "gender." Fascinating.
But I'm not sure I agree.
Cameron and Scanlon's critique seems to ground radical feminism firmly within a dialog of rights. Liberation from an oppressive system is the goal (and a very worthy one, I might add), and it is achieved through clear political objective.
That I have no problem with.
However, I'm wary of letting utilitarian objectivity (for so it almost seems) discredit queer theory's potential to disrupt established binaries, and thereby enact social transformation. For, by defining gender as the system of power relationships existing between men and women, radical feminism has tied it inseparably to a binary that queer theory seeks to displace. If they succeed (which I would argue they often do) in undermining the concepts of an essential sex, a true gender, or a coherent sexuality, do they not thereby create a world in which the male/female binary is rendered absurd? If the binaries undergirding oppression and inequality (male/female, white/black, etc.) are demonstrated to be, not only unstable, but entirely fantastical, must not the entire system collapse?
It seems to me that binaries cannot survive in a world that has, not two, but (as Virginia Woolf once pled for) an infinity, of genders.
Well, I walked into Balliol for the first time ever today, and it is almost too beautiful for words. Regent's Park is quite pretty, and the red ivy is lovely, but there is a breathtaking grandeur to the rich old colleges (and in this case a luscious beauty) that is really incomparable. I wish I had taken my camera.
I was there for a meeting of the Oxford Walking Club, which I am now a member of. More than that, I spent 130 quid towards weekend trips this coming term. It seems a bit extravagant, both in money and time, but when I really think through my priorities, experiencing England is near the top. And consistently hearing how almost impossible distinctions/firsts really are (an impossibility that I'm required to attain in order to remain for a DPhil) has served to convince me, not that I should spend all my hours in the library, but that I should take full advantage of this year, as it's quite possibly all I will get.
Part of that "taking full advantage" involves joining the Regent's Park novice rowing team, which I've done (along with two other MSt students). We haven't actually been out on the river yet, but tomorrow morning we head out bright and early (6:30) for a crash course on staying afloat. And tonight, after shoveling down dinner, we have to pass a swimming test, fully clothed, to prove that we won't drown in the event of a capsize.
In other news, I have yet to meet Emmanuella, the 90-year-old tortoise, but I keep a lookout every time I walk through the quad (apparently she likes to sun herself on warm days).
Also, I would like to commend the Regent's Park caterers as being truly excellent. While I know it seems a bit decadent to complain about George Fox's cuisine, when there was food in such abundance, I have to say that it is a joy to have truly delicious food at every meal. For formal hall (which takes place every Friday evening) we had roast duck in a delectable sauce, the name of which I cannot remember. We also bowed every time we entered or left the room, and looked very serious in our official robes. The only downside was being informed that one rule of formal hall is not to discuss the portraits hanging on the walls, which, of course, made me look at them for the first time. Which then led me to realize that only one of the myriad of official looking scholars was a woman (who did not happen to look very official, or very scholarly, and was hidden away in a far corner).
I could go on, but alas, dinner beckons. As they say on this side of the pond, cheers.
I've just been reading a few essays in a collection of literary criticism focused on the Harry Potter series: Mapping the World of Harry Potter. While I'm fascinated by the idea of taking popular work (whether fiction, TV, etc.) and looking at it critically, I'm confused by these particular writers' opinions. Both essays look at the intersection of Harry Potter and religion (Elizabeth DeVos's "It's All About God" and Marguerite Krause's "Harry Potter and the End of Religion"), and while they seem to come to absolutely contrary conclusions, both authors seem to agree on the premise that Harry Potter somehow poses a powerful threat to the world's Christians (the certain individuals "who believe they can only find that magic through narrow interpretation of a very different set of books").
And I'm perplexed.
Krause's argument centers on the idea that Christians' true antagonism to Rowling's books, rather than being enmeshed in a fear of witchcraft in the text, is actually centered on the much more legitimate fear of the absence of any religion whatsoever. Rowling, Krause argues, presents a world where religion is irrelevant, never thought about, never discussed, and never present in any guise. Rowling's characters make their decisions with no input from any higher power, relying on themselves for judgments of right and wrong, and rendering all morality to a state of relativity.
And here I have to pause, for this just feels all wrong to me. Are we really going to argue that there is no moral compass in Rowling's books? Has there ever been a clearer exploration of good and evil? Of the impact of small choices upon the fabric of the human soul? I think where we have diverged, Kraus and I, is in our definitions of religion. Kraus wants evidence of "an organized system of belief centering on a supernatural being or beings." In the absence of such organized systems, she sees the absence of God. I, on the other hand, tend to find organized systems of belief rather irrelevant and unhelpful. Created by humans in an attempt to claim the divine, they in no way encompass God. On the contrary, God is present in Harry Potter in every moment of true kindness, every time a friend is willing to die for his or her companions, every decision that chooses goodness, mercy, and love over evil, cruelty, and hatred. If God is real, the "I am" the bible claims, then Christians should be the last to need labels in order to find God's presence in texts, and in life.
There is no overt mention of Christianity in The Chronicles of Narnia or The Lord of the Rings. Does that mean they are not Christian texts? Are they only Christian texts because we can rest assured in the "christian-ness" of the authors? I hope not. I hope it is because they are full of things like sacrifice and goodness, the attributes of a God who does not need a name to be recognized.
Tolkien and Lewis, I think, would be the first to recognize God in the Potter books. Recognize God, at least in part, for the reasons DeVos puts forward: an awakening of wonder. They were among the first to argue (passionately and academically) for the significance of fantasy, a genre that reminds us of the true magic we long for. A magic present in our everyday lives, yet rendered unrecognizable by the blinders we've accepted against truth. As such, I resonate with much of DeVos's essay, an essay that pleads for new eyes to see the world we live in -- new eyes that Harry Potter grants us. What makes me uncomfortable is her assumption that this is irreconcilable with the teachings of the church. Or, at least, that the church has deemed it so. She suggests that the backlash against the boy with the lightning scar, from religious quarters, is due to his evocation of "awe, faith, longing for the miraculous and divine, and a perception of morality and benevolence" that is deemed by the church as its territory, and its territory alone.
Can she possibly be right? Have we sunk so far into a power driven war of territory and domination, that we can't stomach the discovery of God in anything but our domain? Or is it that we fear we've lost what Harry Potter has found? -- the ability to evoke the power of such longing. I hope not. I hope the backlash against Rowling and the world she's created is based on far more innocent grounds -- authentic ignorance and misunderstanding.
"How deeply reassuring to know -- from personal experience -- that light truly can be created with words. And so we identify, at last, the source of Harry Potter's magical appeal: Rowling's magical world, perhaps more than any other fictional realm, validates our most fundamental longing -- a universal desire to access the amazing power that lets there be light and everything upon which that light shines." -DeVos p.75
Walking home from the library in lamplight, it took me a while to realize that blowing across the red brick sidewalk, and crunching beneath my flipflops, were the yellow-brown leaves of fall.
On the last stage of the U.S. part of my summer, I'm staying with my family at a friend's condo in Newport, Rhode Island. The remnant of Gilded Age America, it's the site of the "summer cottages" owned by such families as the Vanderbilts, the Astors, and their millionaire friends.
They're the closest thing America has to palaces.
When we lived here five years ago (during my senior year of high school), we had a family membership to the Preservation Society of Newport County, which allowed us unlimited entrance to those of the mansions open to the public. This time I was limited by a ticket to five.
I don't know what it is that draws me back to them so strongly. Maybe it's the way they seem woven into the fabric (albeit at the fringes) of my family's life, their presence looming over Rhode Island holidays for as long as I can remember.
Or maybe it's the unquenchable longing for a doorway into other worlds -- the desire to experience other times and lives, unbounded by the limits of my single soul. The desire to understand how other boys and girls, as intrinsically human as myself, lived in ages and styles so foreign to my own. So beyond the borders of my ability to imagine or comprehend.
Whatever the reason, these marble palaces and dark stone castles, with their ancient trees and lovely walkways, beckon me like friends, mysterious, unknown, yet somehow familiar.
There is the Breakers, the military general of Newport houses, a towering city of unyielding stone. With lawns reaching to the edge of the cliffs and the wave tossed Atlantic, the Vanderbilt stronghold is gilt, gaudy, and unforgiving. Filled with Neoclassical art, gold-plated ceilings, and wide open spaces, there is no coziness within the luxury. But there is beauty in the palatial expanse of the entrance, the light filled corridors, and the outdoor sitting rooms overlooking the sea. It is a house built for drama and intrigue and grandeur.
Marble House, built by the Vanderbilt younger brother, is as mysterious as its passionate, complex, and iron-willed mistress. A museum of medieval artifacts, it is exquisite with a beauty that is austere and untouchable. The most expensive home in America, it was given to Alva Vanderbilt for her 39th birthday. She responded by divorcing her husband, forcing her daughter into an unwanted marriage, and leading suffragist rallies -- all while shrouding herself in dense, inhuman glamour.
No matter how many times I hear the names of Rosecliff's true owners, it's impossible for me to experience it as anything but the Gatsby mansion, where Jay danced with Daisy to the light of a single candle. A house of romance and tragedy. The scene of many films, from The Amistad to True Lies, it's The Great Gatsby that, for me, has made an impression.
Despite it's mottled marble interior, the Elms remains one of my favorite of the mansions. Perhaps it's the location, across the street from our Newport home, or perhaps it's the 'behind-the-scenes' tour we once took, up into the servants' quarters and kitchens, or, most likely, it's the grounds, sprawling with stone lions, garden rooms, and reading trees. But whatever the reason, I feel I could happily live there. =)
And today I saw Chateau-sur-Mer for the first time. A Victorian castle with rich interiors of polished wood and painted walls, it was delightfully warm and cluttered, but so dimly lit as to make me feel almost blind. Once the tour was over, I sat and read in a tree for almost an hour.
The past lives on, in art and memory, but it is not static: it shifts and changes as the present throws its shadows backwards. The landscape also changes, but far more slowly; it is a living link between what we were and what we have become.
-Margaret Drabble, A Writer's Britain
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings . . .
-William Shakespeare, Richard II
I spent yesterday in New York. Woke up at 4:30 to drive to Providence and take the Amtrak into the city. It's embarrassing to admit, but while I've been to several of the world's oldest, largest, most beautiful, and most famous cities (Rome, Cairo, London, Seoul, Paris, etc.), I've never been to the Big Apple.
I loved it.
It was unlike anything I've ever experienced in America. A world unto itself. If there is glamour left in this country, then surely it resides there, in the city of brownstone and brick, where age, beauty, and (let's face it) violence intermix, and history has not been flattened like so much unwanted baggage. There was grandeur there, reminiscent of the glory (and decay) of Rome.
The purpose of the trip was business -- visit the British Consulate and get my Visa -- but most of the day was spent wandering. Walking through Central Park, exploring Times Square, catching sight of the Empire State Building. And yes, eating a pretzel.
But it sent shivers down my back to know that all the while I was a stone's throw away from places like Harlem and Hell's Kitchen, place names that are evocative of literature and film, broken dreams and distant hopes. New York, like all of Europe, is alive with memory.
I even got to see an Off Broadway show. While it's the West End in London that has really fed my taste for theatre (I've seen over 13 shows there in the course of two trips to the UK), Broadway still echoes in my imagination with memories of my first exposure to Les Miz and my early dreams of being a Broadway singer (never mind that I can't actually sing).
The show itself was an adaptation of C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters. A two person show with one speaking role, and one Acting 2 dream part (all movement, and body, and voice). Incredibly well done, Mommy and I were given free tickets by a professor from Carnegie Mellon while trying to get a last minute deal at the ticket window.
We got back to Newport around 11:00, exhausted, sore, and happy.
"He knew that the child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke."
My brother described Cormac McCarthy's The Road as being the most brutally hopeful book he'd ever read. I'm not sure I understood what he meant. I assumed, I suppose, that the book would be both brutal and hopeful. And it is. But it is also more than that. It is a book that is brutal in its hope.
On the surface, it seems to be a story about goodness -- human goodness -- in the face of darkness and death. A world gone mad with fear and brutality. A story about a boy and his father, "carrying the fire." As such, the book is powerful, the book is hopeful, and the book resonates, deeply. For who of us does not long to believe that the human capacity for good -- the breath of God inside us -- is capable of overcoming the dark? Of weathering the end of all things? Such truth would be grace enough, it seems. Proof of a loving God.
But McCarthy refuses to end there. He must go further. Must push the boundaries of what we can accept. What we can believe. Must shower his characters with a different type of goodness. So that, despite a world grown old without food, in which humans themselves are the final source of sustenance, his characters do not starve. Their constant luck, in a world long since picked clean, is so beyond the acceptance of realism, that the only answer seems to be in the miraculous. They are being provided for. Ever trudging forward, without reason to expect that anything should be different where they are going than where they have been, they are yet rewarded, like Abraham, for their faith.
And so the foundations of a powerful story are shaken. McCarthy forces his readers to make a conscious choice. Accept his vision, or reject it. There is no middle ground. This is either a fanciful daydream, without relevance in our world of brutal reality, or it is a story -- as unsettling as Old Testament prophecy -- of the active presence of God in our world.
Unsettling, because the question it does not answer is: why him? Why should one child be spared among millions? Why, while one child is baked over the coals, does another love and eat and survive?
The age old question of evil, which has stumped so many philosophers, and agonized the humanitarian minded, is not, I think, primarily a question of existence. It is not the evil itself that bothers us, so much as the unfairness of it all. We don't wonder why there is suffering so much as we wonder why some seem to suffer so much more than others. It is the arbitrariness that goads us, and makes God seem as heartless as the Greek divinities of old.
Yet still McCarthy asks, do we believe the promises? Goodness and mercy that follow us. A future and hope that prosper us.
What, when all is said and done, do we believe about God?
And it is here that my brother came to the rescue. Reminding me, in the words of Aslan, that we are never told any story but our own. This is not the story of the child roasted in the fire, or even the story of those who ate him. It is the story of a small boy, and the father who loved him. If my God is able (and willing) to provide everything I need for life and godliness, surely God is able to do the same for my neighbor, and the stranger I read about in the newspaper, and every other story that God, not I, knows.
It feels safe and reasonable to believe in the goodness of God in the abstract. But it is truth to believe it in the concrete.
On a stylistic note, The Road is written in prose poetry. Beautiful, compelling, and utterly unique.
I used to write "like lists" a lot. They were a way of glimpsing who I happened to be at any particular moment of time. Of inventorying things that were true about me. Where I found my joy, what gave me life. I never thought of them in such epic terms, because they weren't meant to be epic. They were just the small details of happiness. Looking back, I think they were a way of laying hold of the blessedness of life. Of remembering all the ways that goodness surrounded and upheld me.
I bought a new writing notebook a few days ago, and one of the first things I found myself writing was such a list. It's the first time I've done one since high school. I think being here, in Korea, and giving my soul space to breathe, has helped me recover a place in which such details are the truest thing about me. Not the aggravations or frustrations or fears or failures, but the small happinesses -- not large or epic, but quiet and true.
This list is in no way some complete catalog of my life's joys. It's simply the details that came to mind at the moment I wrote it (a few weeks ago now).
My Like List:
- hazelnut coffee in happy mugs
- Mushishi episodes that touch on mystery and longing
- midnight talks with my best friend, who also happens to be my brother
- a good book, and long lazy hours in which to read it
- listening to books on tape while packing, enduring migraines, or falling asleep
- experiencing art my brothers created
- filling hours with projects I set myself to accomplish
- watching the World Cup with Brits
- beer and cider
- winning something on the Wii
- knowing a friend is reading what you're writing
- Farah's moments of languid contentment
- eating Dip-n-Dots by lake Umpa
- being given a duck loofa =)
"And I trust for him that everything he is doing has to be done. This is our life."
My brother and I watched Into the Wild last night. It's a movie that makes one long for life, and the courage with which to really live. Since the movie first came out, I've been a little afraid to see it. Afraid of the ending I knew was coming; afraid of the sorrow and loss. But this isn't a movie about death, it's a movie about life. About truly experiencing the moments we're given. So that even at the end, when a 23-year-old boy dies alone in a bus in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, it's hard to experience anything other than joy. Joy and longing. And maybe pain for the people he left behind.
When Chris/Alex finds the "magic" bus, near the start of the film, I was overwhelmed by the sense of what G.K. Chesterton calls treasure. The experience of being a castaway on an island where a shipwreck washes up, and every ordinary, every-day item becomes something precious to be cherished, rather than scorned. In his book Orthodoxy, Chesterton speaks of loving Robinson Crusoe for this reason, because it reminds him of the true nature of life -- that everything is treasure. And I long for that right sense of things and their worth -- a worth that only seems graspable when one owns nothing, and therefore has nothing to lose and everything to gain. The delight that sees the world as precious.
It's a truth I knew well as a child, when torn pieces of cloth, abandoned on the sidewalk, could hold my imagination for hours.
The hardest part of the film for me to reconcile is the story of a sister left behind. She says, in one of her many moments of narration, that unlike her parents, who have been purposefully cast off, she receives no word because he knows she doesn't need it. He knows she loves him enough, and is certain enough in his love, to live on in his absence.
Is that the great secret of existence, in this world of separation and loss? The great test of truth? That there are relationships that flounder and die with distance, but real love, as Charles Williams might argue, knows no limits of space or time? Ruth Haley Barton, in her book Sacred Rhythms, says that the life-giving significance of solitude is that it allows us to experience the reality that all things "irreconcilable are somehow reconciled through Christ. Everything is already one through the person and work of Christ in the timelessness that is God." Ultimately, God holds the presence of those we love within God's self, and when we are with God, the perfect Wholeness, separation is impossible. This may seem like spiritualist mumbo-jumbo, but I think the opposite may be true -- that it is simply spiritual truth, that we are often too earthbound, and transient, to experience. But when we live truly, and cease sheltering ourselves from the present moment and the God who indwells it, I think all physical boundaries must burst.
Not sure why I didn't post this when I actually WROTE it (considering it was actually relevant then), but that seems to be one of the things I do: write, but don't post.
___________________________
This is it. Nearly five months of rehearsal, and tonight we perform.
And I am nervous. Very nervous. Isn't it the performers who are supposed to be nervous?
I wonder if every director feels like this. So . . . responsible. But yet, incapable of doing more. The play is now out of my hands.
May it bless those who see it.
___________________________
I always planned to write more about the play. How it went, what it was like to direct, the things I learned and liked and hated. But, as so often happens, it was too soon, too raw, and then it was too late. The feelings slowly fading into that strange haze of past life.
[the lovely ladies of the cast, minus Olivia and Viola --
left to right: Maria, flutist, Fabiana, Valentina, and Curia]
Suffice it to say, it was one of the hardest things I've ever done, stretching me in ways I didn't know I could stretch. At the same time, it was one of the best things I've ever done, and the most enjoyable (easy to say, looking back, now that the stress/tension/terror is over). I'd never experienced anything like it before: sitting in the front row, watching something you created come to life without you. I've always been on the acting side of theatre, participating in the art, but never experiencing it in its fullness. And it was . . . profound? It seems too arrogant of a word, but the meaning is about right. It was like watching a miracle take place. Things happened on that stage that I never would have believed possible. After all of the hard work, pressure, tension, and tears, it was like a taste of grace.
[working with Viola, a freshman with immense dedication]
And I was so proud of everyone. My actors, shattering the limitations they set for themselves. Being bolder, and braver, and better, than they thought they could be. Than I thought they could be.
I love Charles Williams' books. Everyone who knows me knows this. Others may think them strange or obscure, but I find them pulsing with life and power. They remind me, in language that transcends knowing, what it is that I'd forgotten I'm looking for.
Honestly, though, I didn't know what to do with this book. Normally I like Williams' ambiguity -- I think it's part of his stories' power. I wouldn't say that I DIDN'T like it this time, only that it left me perplexed and confused, shaken and unsure.
Is Considine an antichrist or a returned messiah? Does it even matter? To some degree, it seems irrelevant to the story's point. A story that is about living in an ambiguous world, where no morality is certain, out of the necessity of your own being. Living the life you have to, in the face of the choices you can't control.
The problem with this is two-fold: 1. Is evil and goodness truly such a matter of relativity? Is physical action, such as murder, truly irrelevant if the perpetrator burns with what, for lack of other words, seems terrifying similar to the Joy of the Lord and the Glory of God? And while it's easy to thrust this back into our black and white understanding, and declare "NEVER!" what do we do with those Old Testament passages in which the prophets, and the God that they serve, seem to burn with just such joy, and act with just such a terrifying mix of innocence and violence? 2. Most of Williams books, the scholars agree, are ultimately about coinherence -- the beautiful mystery of unity. What does one do with a book, thrust in the middle of this collection, that seems to be about the necessity of living first and foremost for oneself? Of turning everything that is experienced inward, for personal power and gain? And the one antithesis to this -- Isabel who lives only for the other -- encourages her husband down its path, because it is what his soul craves. Yet if he were to succeed in his quest, it would separate him from that which makes him whole.
Who is the hero, who the villain? Who's path is righteous, who's selfish? Who makes the right choices, who the wrong? And what ending are we supposed to hope for? Williams doesn't tell us, and sometimes I wonder, does God?
I have decided to write a bucket list. I may seem a little young for this endeavor, but one never knows what the future may hold. Besides which, life is just so SHORT. And I want to really live.
This is in no particular order.
1. Live in a commune, surrounded by sun and the presence of friends. To learn how to dig in the earth and grow bright red tomatoes and shiny green spinach. Write poetry in the presence of growing red roses.
2. Spend a year in a convent. Work with my hands, give glory to God. Seek peace in silence and solitude and the rule of community. Live within the beauty of stone walls.
3. Write a novel. Find a story that burns in my spirit, and forces itself to be told. Capture reality within the gently rolling letters of the English alphabet.
4. Work in an orphanage, in India. Let the complex and tattered world fade away, until there is nothing but the sacred, simple, and profound duty of loving, and holding, a child.
5. Get a masters in dance therapy. Chanel my love for dance into a healing art; help children remember joy.
6. Adopt a child. Or seven. Share what I've been given with those aching for a home.
7. Get a D.Phil. at Oxford. Spend long hours in the Bodleian library. Live amid the aged stone, the coffee shops, and the books.
8. Get a masters in theology and the imagination from St. Andrews? Unsure about this one, but it seems appropriate to the study of Charles Williams.
9. Spend six months to a year on the Oregon coast, taking long walks on the beach, sitting by the fire, and writing intensely. Convert to polyphasic sleep.
10. Teach at Fox? I'm not sure that teaching is really my passion, but there are some professors who'd I'd do anything (well, almost anything =) to work beside.
11. Visit Iona.
12. Live in Jerusalem.
13. Rent a flat with some friends. Have afternoon tea, and artsy decor on the walls.
14. Teach in Korea, because, well, why not?
15. Find someone to travel the world with. Someone who understands the conflicting currents that run through my soul. Who longs to live a life of compassion and is unafraid of the unknown. Someone who wants a partner and not a picture. Marry that person. Love them forever.
Kohleun just introduced me to the song "I am not my hair" by India.Arie, the themes of which are close to my heart. It may seem like an obvious message, yet there are moments when I feel like the whole crazy world just doesn't get it -- and that it's the most important message we can hear.
It's not just about hair, obviously, but all of the ways in which we're required to live up to expectations and imagined reality. All the ways we're required to hide our true humanity.
I wrote "Bare" for a creative writing class a few years ago. It was a semester of intense angst centered around this subject, and I almost shaved my head over Christmas just to prove a point.
Some people have been offended by this piece, but please don't be. It's not meant to be taken analytically, as an absolute profession of belief, but as an experimental attempt to capture something that I've experienced. And that I long for. As I've said elsewhere, "I think, through this, I was trying to touch on the issue of pain . . . devastation . . . war . . . and the way our society hides from those things. From the reality of sweat and blood, behind the facade of perfection. I believe in beauty, but it is a very different type of beauty than the ideal my culture is trying to force down my throat. It is a beauty that comes through the ashes—the marks of living—rather than by denying them."
Bare—An Ode to Beauty Bald
I want to shave my head. It’s one of those crazy ideas that terrify my parents. They interpret it, I think, as a sign of my slowly dissolving faculties. The warping of my brain by too much study and feminist theology. After all, why would anyone want to destroy all sign of womanly beauty? The golden ringlets that grew into longer curls. Shear them off in humiliation and shame.
I try to explain. How a boy I liked, once told me that he liked my hair. Liked it down. Said it made me beautiful, those strands of tarnished gold. Strands that are not me.
And I rebel. I will not be my hair. I will reclaim my womanhood from a Bible that proclaims me, and my head, to be man’s glory.
I want to be known for the mind that lies beneath the hair. For the part of me that thinks and yearns and ponders. For the passion and the life, under the meaningless wisps that grow and die, without my consent or say-so. That require nothing of me. Reflect nothing on me.
I want to shave my head in honor of those who never had the choice. In solidarity with the broken. The women at Bergen-Belsen and Dachau. Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Those who survived, and those who didn’t. To honor a humanity that was not taken, cannot be taken, with our hair.
To celebrate survival. From cancer. Leukemia. Radiation and chemo. The women who wear headscarves, and wigs. Afraid to show the scars of battle. The sign of loss, and life. Proof that they’re still here.
I want to join the ranks of men like Yule Brynner and Michael Jordan. Of human beauty unadorned. Skin, and sweat, and age. Unafraid to expose the blue veins that pump life, blood and oxygen, through membrane and golden tissue. The sandpaper texture. The shape of their skulls.
I want to demonstrate a different kind of beauty. Sleek and sexy elegance that denies hairspray and color dyes, styling products and curling irons. Proclaim freedom from magazine images and picturesque perfection. From Barbie dolls and Disney princesses, long silken tendrils, hair to their knees. Coiffured and flowing expectations. Stop hiding beneath the mask of color.
I want to wear henna on my head. Make patterns of tribal beauty. Declare myself at home with earth and sky.
I want to stop running from the feel of my own skin. I want to be myself, free of pins and clips and rubber-bands. And I want to love it.
And most of all, I want to be a nun. Set apart for unreserved worship. To return to child-like innocence, and feel nothing between my head and God, but air and sunlight. To be uncovered before my maker, not in shame, but in the humility of a newborn, and beloved, child. To remember my humanity in the presence of a genderless God. A God who created my soul before she created my hair.
I want to feel my prayers rise out of the top of my skull. Float along air currents. Be breathed in by the Almighty (hairless) God.
"And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it."
I'm sitting in the Hong Kong airport, waiting for my flight to Jordan, having just flown from Korea on a very nice Cathay Pacific flight. With an individual screen, and lots of film choices, but only time for one movie, I decided to go with Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones. And I was favorably impressed.
It seems odd to describe a movie about murder as beautiful, but I'm loath to describe it as anything else. Peter Jackson has created a haunting paradox -- a movie about death (and not the peaceful, innoncent kind) that is nothing less than a celebration of life. There are dark moments in the film, to be sure, but the overarching impression is one of light and love. The picture I'll carry with me is of a laughing family, with deep roots and strong ties, fierce in their love and strong in their courage -- the kind of family I want to have.
In the end, I think Jackson is able to take a horrific sort of death (the kind that has haunted my nightmares since childhood) and show that really, in all the ways that matter, Suzie dies the best sort of death (if any death can be good), because she has never spent a moment surrounded by anything but love. As someone states in a different movie I watched recently, "Our finger prints don't fade within the lives they touch." In other words, the Salmons are no less a family after Suzie's death than they were before it. Her place is permanent, and (to quote e.e. cummings) they carry her heart with them.
On a side note, the storytelling perspective is interesting in that it's narrated by Suzie after her death. One of the reasons I was interested in watching it in the first place was that I'd read a review of the book which described it as a 'post-death coming of age story'. Suzie is in every way the protagonist -- a protagonist who must deal with the ending of her idealic childhood, though the cause, in this case, is not growing up but murder. A protagonist who must learn, as we all must, how to hold on to everything that matters (like family and love) while coming to grips with the inevitable changes in herself and the world around her.
And as a final note, I may have watched the film on a bad quality airplane screen, but even so, some of the scenes are absolutely gorgeous.
2. The Gunsan lake, with its bridge of lights and happiness (with special orbs to promote love and dreaming).
3. The shoes. Definitely the brightest, craziest sneakers I've ever seen (think fluorescent yellow, shiny, and huge). But they also love their high heels, which are tall, and not at all the standardized American variety.
4. The red roses that spill over every fence.
5. The uniquely poetic way of using English: "provincial tangible cultural asset."
6. Chicken on a stick with amazing barbeque sauce. Street food at its finest.
7. The "couple sets" -- i.e. his and her matching clothing, drinking straws (because drinks are meant to be shared, not experienced alone), chopsticks, watches, and just about everything else you can think of.
8. Jordan and Marisa's bunny, Faraday, who is very inquisitive, and seems to think Brendan and Thani are boy bunnies.
9. Korean pizza -- some of the yummiest I've ever eaten, with sweet potato crust.
10. Green tea popsicles.
11. Shaved ice desserts, with ice cream, whipped cream, strawberries, shaved ice, cornflakes and fruitloops. Odd sounding, delicious tasting. As an added bonus, you get to eat them while swinging in rocking chairs.
12. Strangers who invite you to share in their picnics, and offer you food at the side of the road.
13. Open rooms with wood floors in which to take naps.
14. Traditional teahouses, with inner courtyards and low tables, even if they do charge too much for tea. =)
15. Biking around islands where seafood is eaten raw or dried on clotheslines in the sun.
16. The culture of open spaces, bare feet and ground sitting, where pouring water requires respect, and giving and receiving is a ceremony of significance.
17. And, of course, the very best part: seeing family. =)
I'm sitting in my almost empty classroom on the last day of finals, and it is a very strange feeling.
I didn't expect to be sad when this year ended.
Halfway through the first semester, I was almost convinced I wanted to come back next year. Come back and do it better. Come back and conquer the unconquerable quest for excellence.
But then it just became too much. Too stressful, too exhausting, too frustrating. Working with kids, when respect is the highest need on your list, is a very challenging endeavor. For one thing, it's not easy to gain their respect. For another, they're not very good at knowing how to respect, even when they want to.
So, in the midst of those spring blues, I decided that continuing on teaching was definitely NOT the path for me.
But now, in the midst of goodbyes, final evaluations, talks on the roof about books, class parties, and packing up my classroom (which I've lived in, much more than I've lived at home, these past several months), I'm not so sure.
I'm going to miss these students. Miss these conversations. Miss the crazy drama of my 9th grade class. Miss the wide-eyed expectation of my 7th graders. Miss the quiet kindness of my seniors. And, perhaps above all, miss the thrill of creation with my actors.
Several of my 9th graders stayed behind after their "final" (it was actually a class party mixed with performances of their original tragedies -- the actual test had been done early) to convince me of all the reasons I had to stay. These included (but were not limited to) having all my students dress up like Darth Vader, having Claire make me peach cobbler every day, having Yasmeen hook me up with a British husband (who can sing, is rich, and works for the U.N.), having Star Wars marathons at Matt's house, and being teased mercilessly about, well, just about everything.
[the wonderfully crazy 9th grade class]
It was a pretty tempting offer. And I want to come back. Want to teach these students again. Want to see them change and grow. Want to grow with them. I told them that maybe when they're seniors I'll come be their British literature teacher.
But who knows? Dreams are good, but in this transient world, and transient lifestyle, it's so hard to believe that it'll actually come back around.
And it saddens me, much more than I expected, because I believe that we could keep growing together. That we could trust each other more, respect each other more, learn together more. That we've built a foundation (with much toil and tears, at least on my part) and next year could be better.
There are so many things I want to experience and do. I only get to live once, and I want to make it count. Want to experience all I can. Orphanages and convents and farms and universities and protests. And yet, I also want to build. Want to have a foundation, and get to grow on it. Get to see something emerge. Get to lay deep roots. Get to be part of something permanent and stable. Get to invest. Beyond a year, beyond a class.
Here is some joy to share with you. This is a selection of some haiku my 7th graders wrote this year. One (by Anna-Lena) tied for 3rd place in the formal category of the poetry contest Whitman held (and there were 180 overall entries, 7th-12th grade, so placing was kind of a big deal =). And "Bob" and "Test Day" are probably two of my favorite funny poems ever.
Flashes of Lightning, Rolls of Thunder As the the thunder rolls and lightning flashes brightly I watch with wonder
by Anna-Lena
Test Day Is it Monday, Josh? No, it's Tuesday. The test day. Oops! I am busted.
Clouds It's cloudy outside Every test day, it's cloudy Like it was promised.
by Chan Young
Who left the milk out? Spoiled and rotten unhealthy and so chunky left out in the sun
by Josh
Bob Bob is a good friend But Bob stole my cookie jar Poor Bob is dead now
by Bassam and Elias
Traveling Clouds Carried by the wind Sending shade upon the land mixing with the blue
Lost Strength No water to drink, no sun to shine upon it. Once strong, it withers.
by Bridget (who wrote a poem that came in 1st place for the humorous category)
Insomnia Hearing thunder roar, Seeing lightning flash by me, Trying to fall asleep.
The Ugly Duckling Ducklings mocking him, the small duckling cries, he just swims away.
Somewhat inexplicably, I'm only nine days away from the end of my first year of teaching.
This is crazy to me. And very stressful. Who knew there could be so much left to do? So much to simply stay on top of -- not to mention those far-off, crazy dreams of actually finishing well.
Tomorrow I will listen to the last two novel presentations from my seniors, and do a very brief review in which I'll try to recap everything they've learned (or at least studied) this year. Then I'll give them their final on Wednesday, and they will be done. Out of here and on to bigger and better things (like traveling to Turkey for a week).
But it's my other classes that I'm more concerned about. The classes that have wormed their way into my heart and stuck themselves onto the walls of my life, with sticky glue and tenacity. The classes I'll carry with me when I leave.
It isn't that I don't love my seniors -- I do. It's just that they're already individuals, cutting their own paths in the world, without need for school or guidance. It's just that I'm too close to their age to really be a role model or someone to look up to. It's just that they already have one foot out the door, and it's hard to listen while their feet are itching to run.
My 9th graders, on the other hand, while they yell, and jump up from their seats, and hum songs, and speak without raising their hands, and tease me mercilessly, actually believe I have something to teach them. And they're willing and ready to learn. Eager to soak up anything that might fall into their paths. Eager to live and experience and grow.
Then there are my 7th graders. The class that is truly mine. My homeroom. My double-periods of English. Eight hours a week I spend with them, and they spend many more reading for me, writing for me, and learning vocab for me. I never expected to love teaching Middle School, yet somehow, with their energy, enthusiasm, laughter and hugs, they have become one of the bright spots in my day.
How do I say goodbye to these faces, these people? How does it just end one day, among diplomas and waving caps, and then, no more. They'll go on to read or not read, to care passionately or to sit apathetically, and I'll never know.
"You know it by the northern look of the shore, by the salt-worried faces, by an absence of trees, an abundance of lighthouses. It's a serious ocean."
Looking over some poetry papers I wrote in college (the aim being to help my students with the fine art of poetic analysis), I accidentally discovered Anne Stevenson's Scottish poems - poems with a "rare weather of aloneness . . . which conjure the landscape and climate of eastern Scotland with its chilly coast and chastened atmosphere" (Ray Parini).
"Fire struggles in the chimney like an animal. It's caught in a life, as when the tide pulls the Tay out scarring predictable mudscape— seawater's knifework notching quick runnel and channel.
That's how you remember the alternative lives. You saw them, could never have lived them. A ribbon of birds is pulled raggedly over November. You're pulled between now and the way you will not escape."
I discovered Sappho this week. And she, combined with teaching haikus to my 7th graders, may have changed my life.
I've never really been a huge fan of poetry, especially not the kind with awkward line breaks, overkill descriptions, and no narrative. Epic poetry I love. Smooth flowing poetry (like Boland's and Nye's) I can appreciate. But that's about as far as it goes.
This past week, however, I have been awed by the power of apples turning red, silver moons setting, and 5-syllable lines. The power of simple words, line breaks, and concrete images, to evoke emotion and meaning.
Although they are
Only breath, words Which I command are immortal.
-translated by Mary Bernard
Like a sweet apple turning red high on the tip of the topmost branch. Forgotten by pickers.
Was Julian of Norwich in any way representative of medieval women as a whole?
Does an understanding of Mary Wollstonecraft's life aid or hinder an appreciation of her works?
Was there a specifically feminine contribution to the corpus of war writing?
Discuss the representation of alienation, isolation and the feminist consciousness in Mrs Dalloway.
What, if anything, is going on in To the Lighthouse?
Discuss the issue of male and female perspectives as Virginia Woolf understands and portrays it in Orlando.
Discuss the significance of chaos and shape in The Waves.
Discuss the idea of established 'male' values vs. 'female' values in A Room of One's Own.
How do Woolf's writings (specifically Three Guineas) engage with politics and creativity?
To what extent does Virginia Woolf’s criticism develop and reflect a holistic theory of writing?
What revolutionary ‘position and outlook’ do you get in relation to Virginia Woolf’s situation in life as depicted in her biographies?
In the Iliad, what is the role of the gods?
In what ways are Oedipus Tyrannus and The Bacchae tragedies according to Aristotle's Poetics?
Is the Aeneid a straightforward eulogy of Rome and its empire, or does Virgil keep his poetic integrity?
Discuss the “life of love” created by Catullus, Horace and Propertius.
In what ways does, or should, an understanding of historical context affect our interpretation of Euripides’ Medea as a positive or negative portrayal of women?
