words and notes: thoughts of a writer, singer, and teacher
Today I’d like to share a post I wish I’d read oh, say, maybe ten years ago. Stephanie writes about relationships and how, maybe instead of asking for intangible signs, we should really just open our eyes.
Too many times I’ve watched people wait and wait. I’ve done it myself. But maybe if we trusted our senses more, we wouldn’t decide, we would choose.
Read more over at The Answer to all our Relationship Questions: Our Eyes.
Smell deeply ~ Bake more ~ Plant a yellow rosebush ~ Light candles ~ Journal when I want ~ Not journal when I want ~ Recommend good books ~ Drink hot tea ~ Wear out my sneakers with running ~ Discover the city with fresh eyes ~ Brush my hair more often ~ Knit warmth ~ Say “I love you” when it’s hard ~ Don’t confuse the “now” with the “someday” ~ Take more pictures ~ Pick a favorite wine ~ Sing like I used to ~ Get my ears pierced? ~ Write (and mail) more letters ~ Dance as much as possible ~ Learn a little more about how to love ~ Don’t fear change ~ Don’t fear stagnation ~ Grab whatever it is and go ~ Loose friends to the four corners of the world but remember them ~ Share my hope
[Today is my twenty-fifth birthday. Today, I will celebrate at a wedding. I will eat cake and dance and marvel at being a quarter-century.]
What were some of the highlights of 2013? Miley Cyrus, of course. Actually, that isn’t true at all. I made it through the year without laying eyes on her infamous performance, and I hope to keep it that way. (This might frustrate Kate, the queen of the internet, merely because it solidifies my old-fashioned and misplaced irritation with modern technology.)
My highlights might not by Hollywood-worthy, but they’re the best of another sort. And there are only six, not five or ten or fourteen, because six is how many I thought of.
1. Cafe shopping. There’s something about opening new doors for the first time, wondering what you’ll find behind enchanting names like Breaking New Grounds, The Blue Mermaid, or my favorite, Grendel’s Den. This has been a year of finding new digs, partly because – for the first time – I have a steady paycheck and I don’t live in constant fear of “Oh my gosh, do I have five dollars in my account?” anymore. There’s something about dark wood and dim lighting that makes me want to curl up and pay hand over fist for delicious things. Good thinking, restaurant owners.
2. Making music. My friend sent me a recording. It was me and seven college friends singing “An Irish Blessing” at one of our recitals. It’s an eight-part piece and because sopranos are a dime a dozen and I have a little more weight to my voice I’m Alto I, a part I never feel comfortable singing. I listened to it over and over, remembering how the sound filled the hall, what it felt like to make music with people I’d shared so many memories with. This summer, I’ll be singing an eight-part song at my college roommate’s wedding, five years after we made this first recording.
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
the rains fall soft upon your fields
and until we meet again,
until we meet again,
may God, may God hold you
in the palm of His hand.
[This is a similar recording of the arrangement we sang by Graeme Langager, only ours was mixed voices.]
3. Friends. I read this quote in Anne Lamott’s Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, and I paused because I have felt this intensely this past year:
They say – or maybe I said – that a good marriage is one in which each spouse secretly thinks he or she got the better deal, and this is true also of our bosom friendships. You could almost flush with appreciation. What a great scam, to have gotten people of such extreme quality and loyalty to think you are stuck with them. Oh my God. Thank you.
I am so grateful for friends who understand me. I am also grateful for friends who, when they don’t understand me, love me anyway.
4. Christian Wiman.
When I first encountered Christian Wiman, I was so overcome with overwhelmed-ness that I emailed an old art professor to share my joy. It was this article that first introduced me to this man of faith and art, and what was it that caught me so immediately? This man who was faced with his own death (cancer) slowly and carefully examined his latent faith and found it there, curled deep inside him, even when he thought (and maybe hoped) it was dead. My Bright Abyss, Wiman’s collection of thoughts on faith, may very well get a post of its own, but here are some of my favorite quotes:
Life is short, we say, in one way or another, but in truth, because we cannot imagine our own death until it is thrust upon us, we live in a land where only other people die.
…it involves allowing the world to stream through you rather than you always reaching out to take hold of it.
Falling in love seems at the same time an intensification of consciousness and the loss of it. Never are the physical facts of existence more apparent and cherished, and never is their impermanence more obvious and painful.
I think of this when I hear people say that they have no religious impulse whatsoever, or when I hear believers, or would-be believers. express a sadness and frustration that they have never been absolutely overpowered by God. I always want to respond: Really? You have never felt overwhelmed by, and in some way inadequate to, an experience in your life, have never felt something in yourself staking a claim beyond your self, some wordless mystery straining through words to reach you? Never?
He is currently in remission, and his latest book of poetry, Every Riven Thing, is on my list.
5. Boots. This might not seem to fit with the other things in this post, but this year I discovered the beauty and ease of boots.
They immediately transform any mediocre outfit into a work of, if not art, at least style. Oh, you’re wearing THAT again? Wait, what are those? Oh my gosh, I love them!
Crisis averted.
6. Recommendations. This is a blend of numbers three and four because good friends recommend good things. I get most of my music from other people, from my city-friend to my brother, and a lot of my books are recommendations, too. My friend Bryn who blogs over at All My Roads, recently wrote a post of 14 Books for 2014, and I was struck by how great they are. Not only had I loved the ones I’d already read, but I wanted to rush out to the book shop and grab the ones I hadn’t.
[And miracle of miracles, my city-friend went and bought me Flannery O’Connor’s A Prayer Journal – with no prompting from me – and I wonder if my friends who don’t know each other are in cahoots.]
It’s good to have people you trust in your life to tell you what to read. And listen to. And do.
So, there you have it. Enjoy your Wednesday!
I had this recurring dream growing up: I’d open the linen closet in our hallway, and magically there was a third floor in our house. The stairs were thin (because even in a dream I was logical – that closet was small!) and when we got to the top, there were two more bedrooms. We didn’t have to share rooms anymore! Here was an attic-y third floor that none of us knew about! It was amazing.
I had this dream numerous times, always imagining my own space, my own way of doing things.
Sharing a room wasn’t horrible at all. Sure, my sister and I had our ups and downs. We have different degrees of cleanliness, different ideas of what it means to be neat. My books took over. Her clothes took over. And neither of us cared much for a vacuum. But it wasn’t terrible.
Still, I dreamed.
She’s had her own place since August, and my brother just got an apartment. He moved in this weekend, loaded the back of the truck with his bed, bureau, clothes, snowboard. He was excited. So excited. There’s something exhilarating about heading out, embarking on a new adventure. Like my sister, he isn’t hundreds of miles away, but when he comes home from work, his home will look a little different. When I come home, there will be one less body, one less sibling with whom to enjoy a warm dinner and a glass of wine.
We made trips to the truck in the freezing cold, and I remembered that recurring dream.
My littlest brother is now cleaning out their room, rearranging furniture, making it his own. His music is playing loudly because neither of us likes to do work without music, and I am remembering a dream.
Our linen closet is only our linen closet, but we’re spreading out, just a little.
It doesn’t feel quite as nice as I’d Imagined.
There were no eggs in the chicken house this morning, and I wasn’t surprised because it’s been so cold. Now, in late afternoon, the snow is falling thick and the window reflects back my Christmas lights. I’ll probably leave them up for awhile because why can’t things be cozy even after Christmas?
I love when snow sticks to forgotten summer screens.
I love when cardinals and blue jays, chickadees and juncos feed on the porch, leave their prints in the snow.
[Children are laughing outside in the snowy dusk. Imagine the coldness of the backs of their necks, the raw ring between the sleeve of their coats and their mittens, the wind-burned cheeks.]
Start off the New Year with a birthday and a dance party. Enjoy the fact that 2 goes into 4 twice and 24 makes a beautiful number.
One of the perks of sticking close to home is you get to visit your old favorites.
The girls had a rainy spring and the garden went through a transformation.
At first, I was completely against the pond. “It’s too big! Who’s gonna maintain it? My forsythia bush!” Now, though, I’ve grown to like it. I do NOT however agree with the unceremonious way my forsythia was disposed of.
We sold out of honey for the first time this year – a good thing, in most ways, but I hate having to tell people to wait till the spring. We’re also doing the favors for two weddings. Picture this: cute little glass jars with “One Pound Honey” on them, a simple cream label and a bow of twine.
My first wedding of the season was on a beautiful island in Maine. We sang “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need” and frolicked in the night along the dark streets of a sleepy town.
I learned that you can have the wedding you want and surround yourself with all different kinds of people at once.
We drove half-way across the country to celebrate another college friend’s wedding. The groom made their wedding shoes of leather and they danced to swing.
I even missed a wedding, but I got to go on a hiking bachelorette – that’s the way to do it!
The wine tasting which brought four friends together on a hot June Sunday. It’s also where a little bet began, but that’s for another day.
The best summer job ever – teaching English at my Alma Mater.
We didn’t have any fun at all.
And then a trip to London, a trip I never thought I’d go on.
A train-ride away was Oxford, and this is my attempt at a panorama.
We stumbled upon an exhibit of mystical writings and illuminated manuscripts at Oxford University. We also found a large blue rooster.
This photo was taken at Kensington Gardens, after a not-so-pleasant run trying to catch a tour through the palace (“I’m sorry, it’s 5:02. The tours are closed.”). I look much happier than my feet were feeling at the moment.
A week at the Swiss L’Abri and mornings of “Oh my gosh, this is real.” Did you know the Swiss care about bees, too?!
Fishing trips in the Atlantic are always cold, even in August.
We didn’t win the photo contest, but the winners were holding a baby. Not fair.
Cousin Christmas pic.
The last photo of 2013. A reunion of roomies and I got to hold her little one for the first time.
[This has been a good exercise for me. Too often I let things slip through my fingers, moments of joy and communion, the hard lessons I’ve learned and re-learned.]
[Next week, I’ll be posting my favorite things of 2013. A little late, but I want to make sure it’s a rocking list.]
I blame Disney, but I’m not sure that’s entirely fair.
Somehow, somewhere, I got the idea that romance had to be BIG. Dates had to be special and frequent. The proposal had to be elaborate, perhaps with candles or a sunset thrown in.
“Mama, how did Daddy propose?”
It was an innocent enough question for a five or six-year-old. I remember my mom pausing, furrowing her brow a little.
“Hmmmm. Well, we talked about it at Calitiri’s.”
I did not understand.
“You talked about it? You mean, he didn’t surprise you?”
[Insert helicopter landing with champagne here.]
“No, no surprise. I remember eating dinner and your father and I talked about getting married.”
“But then later he got down on one knee, right? And gave you a ring?”
[Insert the many proposals Anne of Green Gables got and turned down in the snow.]
“No, there was no ring, honey. Well, he did give me a sapphire at Christmas, but that wasn’t really an engagement ring.”
The dinner conversation happened in October and they were married in May.
“At least you got a honeymoon, right? Where did you go?”
“We went to Nova Scotia on a boat from Maine. We stayed in a cabin and it was freezing.”
I remember trying to understand why there wasn’t more. I thrived off stories, but my parents didn’t really give me much to work with. A dinner conversation? No surprise? No down-on-one-knee? Are you kidding me?
Where was the princess treatment?
Where was the extended year-long planning process?
Where was the gift registry? The two-week European honeymoon? The violins?
I was five and I thought men treated the women they loved like princesses. Look at Belle or Cinderella, for instance. You don’t see them having conversations about things. I thought that maybe my father didn’t quite know how it worked. I thought that love and romance were the same thing, and my parents just didn’t get it.
These days, my friends would probably say that I’m not a romantic. They tend to like things a little more mushy, a little more This Is Supposed To Be Romantic. The thing is, I’ve been thinking lately, maybe my parents had something right.
What’s better than down-on-one-knee with a ring and roses?
Maybe an eyes-to-eyes and mind-to-mind conversation.
Maybe a six-month whirlwind-ish engagement.
Maybe a focus on the marriage instead of the pomp and circumstance leading up to it.
~ ~ ~
I have so many friends getting married now, and each one is doing things differently. Some are “The bigger the better!” and others are more low-key, and that’s okay. I can’t wait to go to weddings, be in weddings, see the love that I’ve watched grow over the past few years. I’m loving the process of choosing colors and flowers and dresses, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Everyone has a different style.
My romantic just looks a little more like a conversation.
[This is not to say that I will never once post a photo of me and the lucky guy, or that I won’t announce our upcoming nuptials on facebook. I may be a luddite, but I know where to draw the line.]
[Photo credit: Sarah. Thanks for going on a cruise!]
My sister is home for Christmas. She only lives about twenty-five minutes away, but there’s something so wonderful about having her right in the same house. Suddenly it’s all six of us again with a great-grandma thrown in, and now that we’re grown-up, vacations and time together seem a lot more important.
Last night, after Grandma went to bed, we sat in the living room and watched home movies. We re-plugged in the VCR (yes, unbelievable, really, that we still have one) and watched tape after tape. It was the strangest sensation, looking at those little faces I used to know so well, and then seeing those same faces grown and changed in the chair across from me. Not only the faces, though. The voices changed, too.
I never recognize my voice, singing or speaking or laughing or anything. I’m not sure why that is. I think in my head, my voice is lower, more grown-up, and it isn’t until someone points out that, yes, indeed, that is your voice, that I realize that high-pitched person speaking is me. On the opposite note, for some reason my sister’s voice used to be low, husky, and we tease her mercilessly about her little-girl voice. It’s not like that at all now. How in the world do these things happen?
[There is possibly no baby or toddler cuter than my littlest brother. I mean, the rest of us were decently cute, but my goodness, this kid was absolutely adorable.]
We watched the Christmas when I was six and my brother opened socks and was silently bummed out. We watched the day Mom and Dad surprised us with a new Viszla puppy and we all blinked awake to its cuteness running all over the room.
My favorite, though, was the video of us at camp. The sun, shining bright and hot on our blonde heads. Fishing off the dock, hoping to catch a bigger pickerel even than last year. Running down the gravel driveway at breakneck speed, our little plastic bikes giving Mom a near heart attack. Luddy, our dog, the tough hunter, scared of the water. Dad taking us out in the canoe and the kids, feeling grown up and big, waving from maybe a quarter mile away. Swimming all day long, doing jump after terrible jump off the dock.
Back when all we needed was the bunch of us and a long day.
We went there every summer for one week in August and it’s easy to forget who we were.
In a lot of ways, we’ve changed – taller, bigger, more experience, more hurt – but we’re not that much different, really. It was constantly loud in those home videos, and it is consistently so to this day. We screeched, we pushed, we danced, we hollered. My parents were amazingly patient, I realize now, watching their nearly-perfect hands-off parenting, because what is accomplished by helicoptering? It amazes me that from two people grew a whole family. How crazy it must feel to look at your best friend and then over at the four children you are blessed enough (or crazy enough) to have.
My hair’s a little darker, I’m (only a little bit) taller, and at least now I KNOW I have a problem with being bossy. Admitting it is the first step.
[A little part of me would go back there in a heartbeat.]
[This photo is from the ocean, our more recent family spot.]
He sits in the back of my beetle. I forgot that eleven-year-olds usually sit in the back, so my attempt at cleaning (a.k.a., throwing everything in the backseat) was completely pointless. I make excuses, some fair, some not so much, and he tells me he doesn’t mind. I ask if his room were clean. He says yes, usually.
We drive for thirty minutes through the snow, the trees bending over the road. It’s supposed to be nearly sixty degrees this weekend, and I’m dreading the brown bedraggled wetness that will bring – just in time for Christmas.
“How was school?”
“What are your dogs names?”
“Do you have any siblings?”
– I ask.
“What’s that?” – he asks, and I clarify:
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
We go back and forth for a few minutes, neither of us quite sure how to navigate this new, unique relationship. He asks the usual progression of questions:
1. Do you have any children?
No! I answer, up-beatly.
2. Do you have a husband?
No! I answer, equally up-beatly.
I can feel his mind awkwardly fumbling for the next question, because what comes after that?
3. Do you have any pets?
These I do have, thank goodness, and I tell him about our three crazy dogs and my eighteen chickens. He listens to my every word, but he doesn’t always respond. He looks out the window.
He asks what my job is, and when I tell him I teach Latin and then explain what Latin is, he goes on to ask if I teach Spanish? French? What other languages? I wish I could tell him, Yes, yes, I teach them all!
There is a comfortable silence now, like we’ve known each other awhile. Maybe having animals makes me trustworthy. Maybe fulfilling his dream of riding in a beetle makes me fun. Maybe the fact that I “look like a science teacher in those glasses” makes me knowledgable.
Either way, I think we’ve crafted an interesting relationship. One that will happen once a week, growing into each other and our uniqueness.
Friends who don’t twist your arm but somehow always get it out of you. I’d been holding it in the whole time. That’s something I’m not particularly good at, but there are some things better off left to stew for awhile. I’d been smiling and laughing and whatever else the moment called for, but finally, on the phone in the dark, I spilled my guts.
They weren’t pretty.
I didn’t do it because she begged me, and I didn’t do it because I felt an obligation. It was like a letting go, a release of all that I’d been holding onto for far too long.
And what did my city-friend say, miles away in her apartment?
She reminded me that every week I write about something good, and I should remember that.
Exactly what I needed on a Sunday night in December.
My bedroom at Christmas. There are few things more delightful than a cozy bedroom, and while I can’t fit a tree in here, I do have a balsam candle that’s almost as good. I strung lights around the window and made an attempt at a garland (gingerbread cookies and cranberries – the logistics are harder than you’d think).
I also set out the Christmas dolls my mom bought me when I was little (I think they may have partly been for her, but I hold on to them nonetheless).
Set them out on my new bookshelf, made for me by a friend. Yes, you read that right. Seems the stacks of books surrounding my bed was an abomination that couldn’t wait. Pretty pleased with how it turned out.
Aladdin. The musical is over. It was so much work. The kids were wonderful, and I laughed through the whole show. My father chided me, saying it wasn’t nice, but they know me. They’ve been listening to me laugh for two months now. They know it’s for love.
Surprise packages. I don’t remember the last time I got a package in the mail. Okay, I do. I bought some cds with an Amazon gift card last year. But you know what I mean. Yesterday, I came home to a little white package on the island. I didn’t recognize the address. Out came a paperback of flash fiction with a card from my uncle. I don’t even think he knows I have an affinity for flash fiction, but there it was in my kitchen. I stuck it in my bag and carried it around all day, but it looks like it’ll have to wait for evening and a glass of wine.
[Also, not quite sure about this character. Sippican Cottage? That can’t be his real name. And his blog is hilarious. More to come.]
Music. I rediscovered this classic from my friend’s blog last week. Nothing like a good, melancholy Christmas song.
Only one week left, guys. Buckle up. Today’s my shopping day. Watch out.
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