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Where I’m From

I am from a thought-filled bed –

from pumpkin-pie candles and oak bookshelves.

 

I am from the white house on the slope,

homegrown apples and sage.

 

I am from the golden honey –

the towering pine whose long gone limbs

I remember as if they were my own.

 

I’m from dinners on the porch and too much laughing,

from an open-hearted mama and a dream-big father.

I’m from not enough cleaning and just the right living

and from stacks of books that beg reading.

 

I’m from “don’t wish your childhood away” and “try new food always”

and “Jesus called them one by one.”

 

I’m from cozy Christmas mornings and the yellow lights.

I’m from New and Old England,

sun-warmed vegetables and raspberry jam.

 

From sea-fishing, lake-fishing, ice-fishing,

when long-gone family breathe life again

for just that moment on the water,

 

and scrapbooks filled with newspaper clippings

tell us the world.

 

[This is part of a link-up with SheLoves Magazine]

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Good Things #15

I decided to write “Good Things Mondays” back when Monday morning was spent with my writing and reading and catching-up. This year, my schedule has shifted, and Wednesday is now the day for creativity.

So, are things just as Good on Wednesdays as they are on Mondays?

I like to think so.

Thought-provoking. I have recently become re-addicted to TED Talks. I posted one last week on being a twenty-something, and this week’s favorite is on body language. We’ve heard this idea before – that information is conveyed through non-verbal cues – but Amy Cuddy asks if perhaps our body language can change our thinking. It left me thinking: How do I portray myself just by the way I stand? Do I adopt a posture of powerlessness? Or the other way around?

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Music. I can’t remember how I found this song. Probably Pandora. And for once I was smart and wrote down the name. It’s called “Way Over Yonder in a Minor Key”, and the version I like the best isn’t on Youtube. This one’s pretty good though, and when I heard his speaking voice, I was surprised he sang such folksy music.

Books. Right now I’m reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer. I bought it from an independent used book store right before they were unceremoniously kicked out of their space of twenty-plus years by outrageously-raised rent (can you tell what I think about that?). It’s written as letters back and forth so that was an adjustment at first. It’s set post WWII, and I really like that time period these days. It’s also Shaffer’s first novel, and I like reading author’s firsts.

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Fall walks, bike rides, etc. Is there any other season that begs to be walked in? The leaves are changing here in New England, the air is crisp, and I revel in the particular way the sun looks in autumn.

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Fall foods. Crunchy apples. Warm cider. Pumpkins (uneaten on the steps). Cider doughnuts. Apple pie (as soon as I get to apple picking).

Woo-hoo! So, I submitted a poem to a competition a few months ago (okay, more like a lot of months ago), and while it didn’t win, it was one of 17 finalists. It’s called “Almost Family” and it comes out in the September issue of Ruminate. A step in the right direction. Now if only I could write more…and more… If you click on the link, you’ll see my name, fourth from the top in the poetry section as proof!

Words. Autumnal. Puerile. Euphoric.

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Painting in the Temporary

I’ve been rearranging my bedroom for the past few weeks. Yes, it takes me a long time. Partly because I’ve only devoted small chunks of time to pondering the feng shui of this girlhood bedroom of mine, and partly because something is in the way.

I think I need to paint my bedroom.

This is not a huge development for most of you. But look at it this way:

1. I haven’t changed the color of my room since high school.

2. I don’t like doing big projects and I especially don’t like doing them alone.

3. Alone, you say? What about your sister?

4. Oh, right, she’s moved out and designing her own a-little-bit-too-big-for-one-person bedroom.

So that’s the crux of it. I sit on my bed and look around. Maybe the bookshelves should go here? Maybe I need more bookshelves (well, that’s a definite)? Maybe I should move my pictures to the other wall? Maybe I’m the most indecisive domestic there is? And all of this wondering is stuck because I feel like I need to paint over the white compound marks her posters so cunningly covered, but I don’t have the heart to do it all alone.

~     ~     ~

When we were little girls – maybe nine and ten – we painted our room “Frosted Cranberry.” We huddled our beds in the middle, draped old sheets over everything, and Mom taught us how to roll the thick dark paint on the walls. I was terrible at edging so Mom did that, carefully maneuvering around the moulding with the same attention to detail she brings to weeding the garden.

That is the color I think of when I remember being a little girl.

The deep cranberry of Laura Ingalls Wilder Club, writing inventive and terrible short stories about murders in a small town, trying to start a business – any business – because entrepreneurialship is in my blood, and, probably the best, the color of two twin beds sitting parallel with a little rug in between.

~     ~     ~

If “Frosted Cranberry” is the color of my childhood, and “Waterfall” is the color of my teenage hood, what should be the color of my young adulthood?

I think there is a tiny part of me that is afraid to commit to this place in the form of new paint.

How long will I call this room mine?

How long will I actually spend in this little white house?

And how many hours do I want to devote to a project that will take me far too long for what it is?

But I am reminded that temporary things deserve as much beauty and commitment as non-temporary things. I get stuck when I think that way; if I’m always waiting for certainty, I’ll never do anything. Before I know it, I’ll be living in a room with worn-through carpet and peeling-off paint.

Why live in a room whose walls are covered in compound and the smoke of beautiful candles burned years ago? Does it matter if I’m here only one more year?

Wouldn’t I rather be surrounded by beauty?

I know that I could elicit help from a brother or a friend. Maybe I will. My sister would probably even come home for the weekend and slap some paint on these walls.

But I’m the only one choosing the paint.

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[When I Lose It]

I’ve been whirlwinding it the past few weeks, as school’s started, small group’s back up and running, and the farmers’ market goes strong for two more weeks. My graduate class started, too (can you say Friday night classes and all day Saturday classes are a breed unto themselves? filled with falling-asleep-behinds and the intense urge to run). The theatre company I work for is eagerly awaiting auditions in two weeks, and we have a production meeting tonight.

Sometimes I think I don’t need God. And then things like this happen:

I forgot something Monday.

I forgot SOMEONE Monday.

And I wanted to curl up and die.

One of my Latin students from last year transferred to a different school, but she wanted to continue studying Latin.

Of course I’d love to keep working with her! Monday the 16th at 5? Awesome. See you then.

But I didn’t see them then, and I didn’t get the email until the next morning, and I would have rather cleaned the bathroom five times than feel so much shame.

Because I remember one time being forgotten. I was fourteen or fifteen and I was writing a short story cycle with my writing tutor. She was (and continues to be) one of my absolute favorite people, but there was this one time when she forgot me. I sat there waiting but she didn’t come. It wasn’t really a big deal, but I still remember it.

And here I was, ten years later, doing the same thing.

Maybe it isn’t about God, you say. Maybe you just need a flippin’ planner.

Which is true.

But really it comes down to the fact that my head isn’t screwed on straight, and that more often than not comes from my inability to set my eyes where they belong. I read my Bible this morning and felt disconnected and my mind wandered:

Wait, so how much money should I be saving?

Ugh, I really want a doughnut right now.

Did I email that woman about selling pastries at the farmers’ market?

Shoot, I never delivered those candles. Ugh.

~     ~     ~

I sent an email back. I apologized left and right, falling all over myself, saying I would drive to their house and make it up to them.

I haven’t heard back.

What is it about humans that makes us need constant reminders that life is too big for us? I get into the groove of things, I tell my Creator Thanks, man, see you Sunday, and things are great for awhile.

Things are still great.

But praise God for not letting us coast for too long. Hopefully that little girl and her mama will forgive me, because Latin and learning are too fun to just throw away because I’m a scatter-brain.

 [If this picture doesn’t say it all…]

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Good Things #?!

I can’t remember the last time I was dutiful and wrote a Good Things post on an actual Monday. I may need to reevaluate my plan.

Here are some good things, regardless.

megjaySmack in my twenty-something-face. A friend posted this on Facebook and I love TED Talks. Here, Meg Jay talks to twenty-somethings about what happens when we buy into the lie that “twenty is the new thirty.” It’s frustrating when you see glimmers of yourself.

Music. You know when you finally start doing something you should’ve been doing all along and you think What the heck have I been doing all along?! That’s how I felt after I started listening to The Oh Hellos – MONTHS after a friend recommended them to me. Here’s just a taste:

New Running Shoes. Not sure if this is a Good Thing or not…just kidding…Finally went for my first run since London and Switzerland and two days later I’m still feeling it and wondering if I’ll get it back. I will say, however, that new sneakers make running more fashionable, if not easier.

Birthdays. Who doesn’t like to celebrate birthdays? Today is my twin brother and sister’s 23rd, and hoorah for them! (See how sharp they are?!)

twins

Fresh out of college, fresh into life, and here’s to finding your own Good Things!

[Prize to whoever can count the number of times I used an interrobang in this post.]

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You Teach Latin to Third Graders?

I walk into my second third grade class of the day. I still think of these little people as second graders and I’m not sure when that will change. Pass out the textbook, read a paragraph slowly, painstakingly – they are afraid of making mistakes and I can’t wait to show them that I don’t care about mistakes. They can’t pronounce quoque or Latin Asia for the life of them, and they look up at me with big eyes.

We make lists on the board. What part of speech are all these words? Nouns! What part of speech are all these words? Verbs! See? You’ve already learned two parts of speech in Latin, and it’s only our second class!

Finally I tell them to stand up, push their chairs in. One of the smallest ones grins and says,

“We’re going to learn a song!”

And I look at her quizzically.

“How did you know that?!”

“Sally told me!”

And that is the moment I realize: They talk about Latin class.

Oh my gosh. It was a dream come true. Little third graders passing in the halls. They could talk about recess, about Disney princesses, about sleepovers and playdates. But they talk about Latin.

For the rest of the class, I taught them “Hallelu-hallelu-hallelu-hallelujah, Gloria Deo!” and we sang it, all twenty-six of us. We sang it really quietly, crouched down, and then we grew and grew our bodies as we got louder and louder, ending with arms raised, singing “Gloria Deo!”

Glory to God.

At the end, they sat down to the new Latin command they’d learned (“Sedete!”), and as I wheeled my cart full of books out of the room, I heard them softly sing to themselves.

Hallelujah! Gloria Deo!

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Diner Talk

My mom used to tell me stories of her diner-waitressing days. She started working at 15, a young, “apple-cheeked” smiler who (of course) began her first shift by spilling all over a policeman. She worked there all through high school and even into college. She talks about the man who came in every day, three meals a day, ever since his wife died.

“He used to make his tattoo dance for us,” she says, and I picture a wrinkly old arm tattoo shaking and jiving on the diner counter.

I thought, growing up, that I would work at a diner, too. I guess I thought I’d do most things my mother had done, and in the same order. But the little diner in my town would have none of it. [“Do you have experience waitressing?” “No, but I’m a fast learner.” “Sorry, no thanks.” And I was out on the streets.]

A second chance came, however, after college graduation. [I know! You’re not supposed to work at diners when you have a college degree! Well, guess what? Life doesn’t always end up the way you expect it to.]

I walked in on a rainy day in October looking for a part-time job to supplement my wonderful job at the tea shop. It was spur-of-the-moment, prompted by my love of this particular diner’s grilled cheese on homemade bread.

I sat down with Nick, the owner, and he asked me about three questions:

“Do you have experience waitressing?”

“No, but I’m a fast learner.”

“Are you good with people?”

“Yes!”

“Can you start Monday?”

“Definitely.”

You know what landed me that job, the one that no college-grad is supposed to want, but the one that I couldn’t wait to start?

I smiled.

No joke.

Nick leaned back in his chair and said, “I really like that smile.”

And I laughed awkwardly because what do you say to something like that?

“No, seriously,” he said. “I just fired a girl yesterday because she walked around like a dead person. None of the customers liked her. It was terrible. Keep that up and you’ll be great.”

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What is it about smiles that gets people?

I am totally victim to a good smile. After height (over six feet? thank you very much!), smiles are the first thing I notice about men. But women, too, really. Think right now about the people you know – which ones do you picture smiling? They’re probably the same ones you enjoy spending time with.

Babies mimic faces, but they’re not the only ones: look at a person smiling, and you’ll find it hard not to smile, too. It’s contagious. And beautiful. And who doesn’t want to be with someone who’s joyful?

Did I smile every day I was at the diner?

Yeah, but I didn’t always feel like it.

That’s another thing, though – the act of smiling produces the feeling of happiness.

And as I start this month of September, my second year teaching, I remind myself of this. Happiness and joy can be contagious things, and smiling is a way to spread them. I’ve been growing out of my melancholy stage, and the light at the end of it is beautiful.

Try it on. It looks good.

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Singing Through the Rests

We had to take an ear training class in college for four semesters. It was four semesters of sight-singing, solfege, rhythm, harmonizing, chord recognition, and dictation. To put it kindly, I was not exactly the shining star of this class. I liked to hide in the back and make snide comments to my friend-in-crime — your sense of humor gets honed when you feel like a dunce.

I had a particularly difficult time with rhythm. Pauses, to be exact. I was always too excited to wait the allotted rests, and instead would like to plow along, ignorant, often, of my musical faux pas. The “musicians” in the class (a.k.a., the non-singers) would sigh and shake their heads at me. I was only a singer, after all.

The other night, I learned where I got this terrible non-rest-observing trait.

It runs in the family, and it comes from my great-grandmother.

We sat at the piano (after I dusted the keys and smoothed out the hymnal and pulled up an armchair for Gram). For over an hour we played and sang. You wouldn’t think the tiny woman next to me at the piano was the same woman who perpetually leaned in her recliner. The woman who asks me the same question two or three times in the span of five minutes is also the woman who remembers every word to “Blessed Assurance” and “In the Garden” and “Rock of Ages.”

And she has a decent ear for tune, still.

She sang right along with me, her 104-year-old vocal cords showing their age, but her love of music outshining even her exhaustion.

[“It does a heart good to sing a song once in awhile,” she said.]

We sang and sang, my family cringing at my wrong notes, but she didn’t seem to mind. [Trick of the trade: drop the tenor or alto line if you can’t hack it.] I’d been wondering for two years what good my music degree was. I guess hearing your great-grandma sing is a pretty good reason.

The thing is, though, she never paused long enough. Every time there was a rest or a held note, she powered on through, halfway through the next line before my fingers could catch up. This happened again and again, until finally it dawned on me:

It’s genetic!
My inability to keep silent through rests is not my fault!

It’s all hers!

And I rejoiced.

[“Gram, it’s bedtime. Let’s sing one more and then we have to go to bed.”

“Do I have to?”

And who could say no to that?

So we stayed up another half an hour, sang a few songs more than once – because if you forget you sang them, what’s the point?

And the only way I could get her to go to bed was by promising we’d sing again soon.]

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Can’t Put My Finger On It

Walking downhill forces you to tip-toe and the body that usually finds it so difficult to be graceful looks like a dancer just for a moment. Spending a week in the mountains, you walk downhill quite a bit.

The mountains have a way of shocking. Waking up after a night of airplanes and trains and miscommunication and three hours alone in the dark is transformed when you look out the window.

What could keep you away a whole year? Then another?

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Oh, this.

Homes called “chalets” and dark wood-filled kitchens. Mint tea shared by a small community that will most likely never see each other again. Nights in the lounge playing fish bowl; conversation that drifts from American Girl Dolls to the point of prayer to the public transportation system in America.

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How did I become so blessed?

And one of the best parts is the absence of this very thing: no internet, limited phones, no demands from the world.

I know I can’t live like this always, but for a week it is lovely.

Did you know it is possible to play pingpong in the dark in bare feet and not care that the pavement is freezing?

And you can sing harmonies to hymns with people you barely know, but you all know the music.

You can learn the laughs of eighteen different people and name the laugher a half-a-house away.

You can play volleyball and not be kicked out for your terrible serving abilities.

You can weed a garden you will not enjoy, take recycling to the village whose name you can’t pronounce, deep-clean a kitchen that will serve you only one more meal.

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Then you will wake up bleary-eyed and pack your bag. You will try to pretend it isn’t real as your friend pours you coffee – a cup of coffee you inhale because the bus is coming.

You will walk to the end of the driveway with a group of new friends and one old. You will hug them and wonder Where will God bring you? as you wave from the seat through the window.

You will not be the same when you land in Boston, but you try not to name the ways.

That’s something you learned during your days in Switzerland:

You don’t always have to put a name to things because sometimes that’s all you end up seeing. The unnamed goes overlooked and invisible, hidden by what you can label, but it’s no less valuable.

[All this you overheard at dinner because you don’t always have to be in a conversation to gather its truth.]

You’re different but not sure how. And you’re becoming okay with not knowing.

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A London Update

The best sleeps are the stolen ones. I’ve had a lot of those since getting to London. The best, though, was in a tiny graveyard in Oxford. I thought it was secluded (“I just need a place where no one can see me. I’ve had enough of people.”), and I laid down in the grass and leaves and branches and fell asleep. It was safe – my friend sat beside me writing a short story – but it wasn’t nearly as secluded as I’d imagined. People walked by, talking and laughing, and the sounds of the small city lulled me to sleep. It’s been far too easy for me to drift off lately.

Not everything about this trip has been so easy.

For example: I am currently sitting in an airport again, roughly 6.5 hours early, because we had to check out of the hostel at 10:00, and who wants to drag this luggage all across London? S is off on his way to Scotland, so I paid the 5.50 pounds it costs for a one-way ticket and came to Heathrow early.

Decent plan.

Until they tell me I actually have to check this bag (“I carried it from Boston.” “Doesn’t matter.” Ah, joy.), but when I went through the queue to check it, it was way too early.

“You’ll have to come back at 16:50.”

“Are there any coffee shops I can sit at?”

“Well, most things are through security…”

And I find myself at a Krispy Kreme (Yes, you heard that right, a Krispy Kreme in London. I’ve never set foot in a Krispy Kreme at home.) I’m writing this in Word because I only get 45 minutes of internet.

My vision of an afternoon spent sipping strong coffee, reading, and writing, is looking very different.

~     ~     ~

“Catherine, what should I do when I go to London?”

Well, first off, buy a London pass. It goes against every bone in my body to fork over 60 pounds in the blink of an eye, but it is so worth it. We toured the Globe (If only we could’ve seen a show there! An actor was warming up on stage while we were touring, and she sounded like us music majors, all trills and blubberings and over-dramatizations.). We walked through the whole Tower of London and saw the crown settings of Georges and Henrys, Victoria, and Alexandra.

We did the London Bridge Experience (an underground historical/horror show) and my eyes were closed for most of it. The butcher took a liking to me and kept asking me questions, but he was a crazy murderer and I was freaking out.

We climbed a monument (ah! I forget the name!) and saw the city from the sky.

We did all the free stuff at the Tate Museum of Modern Art. It was awesome. But there are whiney artists everywhere, I guess, and they’re always wanting to stick it to the man.

And, probably the best part aside from the Tower:

Westminster Abbey.

There it was. The real thing. So many names I wasn’t even expecting. So much history behind that stone.

Kings and Queens, Dukes and Earls.

And Poets’ Corner shocked me with its concentration of literary history.

Then there was Oxford, with its more intimate streets and academic walls and surprise exhibit of Magical Books. Illuminated manuscripts peered out at us, with the imaginings of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and countless others. The best part was that it was unexpected: we just wandered in and there it was, golden and colorful and fantastical.

~     ~     ~

“What should I not do when I get to London?”

DO NOT not buy an Oyster card. Your feet will destroy you.

DO NOT assume they will take your card everywhere. (“Do you have a chip?” “What?” “A chip?” “What?” “We don’t accept cards without chips.”)

DO NOT assume that the coffee will be strong. It probably won’t be.

DO NOT assume that trying new beer will always pay off. It often won’t. But at least you were adventurous, right?

DO NOT think you can fit everything in. You can’t. Just accept it and tell yourself, “If I really want to, I can always come back.” You might never return, but it’ll placate you long enough to get you back home.

~     ~     ~

Now, Switzerland waits on the other side of that plane ride. A friend I haven’t seen in over a year (the same friend who writes me beautiful letters of her new life) and a chance to think and read and talk about things that matter to me. Such a different vibe, I think, than London.

We shall see!

 

[P.S. I am so technologically challenged that I cannot figure out how to get my pictures from the iPhone my mother forced upon me for this trip and my computer. I guess they will have to wait. Know that they exist and that the photo in this post is unrelated but at least pretty.]