“As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame”

To follow Christ is, according to Micah 6:8, to "act justly," or as Gerard Manly Hopkins expresses it, "to justice." While we celebrate Christ's birth, think on how you can be Christ's presence on earth now.

This is the second half of one of Hopkins's poems, "As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame," in which he compares the kingfisher, one of England's most colourful birds, catching the fire of the sun on its wings, and the dragonfly drawing flame on its iridescent body to humans that should reflect Christ, since God sees us, by His grace, as "little Christs."

Í say móre: the just man justices;

Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is—

Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

Hopkins was a Jesuit monk, so a follower of Ignatius's theological teachings. Jesuit professor Tim Muldoon explains this poem as such:
When a kingfisher, a dragonfly, a stone tumbling down a well, a bell does what it is made to do, it "selves"– it speaks itself. And when a human being "selves," the person manifests Christ in the world. That, according to Aristotle, is virtue. That, according to Ignatius, is freedom. (http://ignatianspirituality.com/4534/faith-and-action/)
Hopkins's beautiful verse and inventive language convinced me to study his works for my master's thesis. I hope you will also be inspired by his words.

(photo of kingfisher from Creative Commons)

The Poems of Gerard Manly Hopkins

You can hear another one of Hopkins' most famous poems,"Inversnaid," here.

Chaucer: Neither Feminist, Nor Sexist, Yet Both and Neither

Geffrey Chaucer is one of the most important authors in the English language, probably only second to Shakespeare. He wrote during the Middle Ages, so before Shakespeare, often playing with earlier legends, fairy tales, and serious books. By "playing with," I mean he adapts the story to make it more ironic, funny, or to make a point. In many ways his style was very post-modern. Sometimes he inserts himself into his stories (he is one of the pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales, for example) and sometimes he interrupts his narrative to address his readers. Just the practice of recreating a story that already exists, is rather post-modern. Case in point:

For my Chaucer class, I wrote an essay on how we can't know if he was a feminist or a sexist because of his ironies. In fact the debate does not only rage among opposing camps, but amongst feminists themselves. He engages in the antifeminist rhetoric (Example: Emulate the Virgin Mary, Avoid Eve-like behaviour like the plague), but also allows his female characters to combat this rhetoric. The most powerful example is the Wife of Bath (Alison) whose fifth husband reads to her from a book called "The Book of Wicked Wives" which records evil women from Eve, passing by Delilah, and several women from Greek mythology that murdered their husbands. Of course, he's trying to show Alison how women are inferior to men and much more evil.

One day she can't take it anymore and rips out three pages from the book. This leads to a physical fight, which leads to Alison's deafness in one ear...BUT, although she's hurt, she wins her point. Her husband agrees to stop reading his favourite book and even more remarkable, he agrees to let her have control over their house and land. (Ironically, the house and land were hers to begin with, but by marrying him, she had lost her rights to them simply because she was a woman). Furthermore, he grants her complete "maistrie" (mastery) and "soveraynetee" (sovereignty) in their relationship, telling her she can do as she wishes for the rest of her life.

Sounds like Chaucer is advocating women's equality, right? Not exactly. His description of her is far from flattering. She is much more sinful than saintly: sensual, unfaithful, deceitful, proud, lustful, frivolous, manipulative....On top of that, she takes biblical passages out of context to defend herself. As one critic, S.H. Rigby, asks, is she in fact just "a debunker who is herself being wittily debunked?" Her argument for the equality of women, or more accurately their superiority over men, may be Chaucer's farce of the feminist point of view.

In the end it is impossible to know. As another critic, Priscilla Martin, put it Chaucer's "ironies, ambiguities and multiple narrators present a hall of distorting mirrors" so Chaucer can be seen as sexist or feminist, neither, or both.


The Wordle:

(click to enlarge)

Jude

Kate Winslet starred in the movie adaptation of the book in 1996. Here's the trailer, which covers the main points of Jude and Sue's relationship.

Jude the Obscure Themes

He regrets that he doesn't accomplish these goals or later goals of having a lasting relationship with Sue. On his death bed he "he often rambled on upon the defeat of his early aims."
And the Wordle (click to enlarge image)

Here are some of the main themes of Jude the Obscure that we presented to the class.

Sexual tension:

Jude the Obscure is rife with sexual tension. In the first part Hardy highly sexualizes the narrative. We can almost sense the hormones coursing through Jude and Arabella's bodies. For example, after running up a hill together Arabella falls to the ground in exhaustion pulling Jude to his knees beside her. As she speaks to Jude, the narrator describes her body "heaving and falling in quick pants, her face flushed, her full red lips parted, and a fine dew of perspiration on her skin," a description that seems more appropriate to a woman recuperating after sexual intercourse than after exercise.

Unconventional view of Marriage:

Sue says, "it is foreign to a man's nature to go on loving a person when he is told that he must and shall be that person's lover." After his marriage to Arabella, Jude calls marriage "a daily, continuous tragedy."

Social Conventions:

Although they live outside of the boundaries of societal conventions, Jude and especially Sue live by strict moral codes. For the period of time during which they both share the same moral compass, they are the most harmonious. Yet when their values differ, it leads to tension and eventually rupture. For example, Jude is dissatisfied with Sue's principle that dictates that they not have sex until both are divorced even though they live together. Because they are an unmarried couple living together, they are shunned by their communities forcing them to move often. Sue is disowned by her father. Sue realizes the reason that they are disdained is that their views are before their time; as she says, they are "pioneers." It is because of her moral views that Sue later decides to return to her ex-husband, arguing that since they had a relationship sanctioned by society and the church he, not Jude, is her rightful partner. So her views lead to the death of their relationship.

Death:

Jude is an orphan being raised by his great-aunt Drusilla Fawley. His father had suddenly died of an illness about a year before the beginning of the narrative and his mother had committed suicide by drowning herself.

After learning of his mother's suicide and being depressed about his loveless marriage with Arabella, Jude tempts fate by walking on the thin ice of a pond hoping to fall through and drown. When the ice fails to break, he rationalizes that he is not "sufficiently dignified" for suicide.

Death by suicide and murder is the great tragedy of the novel. Sue is honest with Father Time, admitting her feeling that it would be better for children to be "plucked fresh than stay to wither away miserably." This yearning reflects the "coming universal wish not to live." As one critic writes, this "modern" solution of the "dilemma of birth," suicide, is the only acceptable solution posited by Hardy in his later novels.

Treatment of Children:

It seems that in their romanticized ideal of union, Sue and Jude neglected the realism of raising children. "Father Time" feels that he and his half-siblings are a burden to Jude and Sue. Just the fact that the children's names are never mentioned suggests the parents' emotional detachment from them.

Unfulfilled Goals

Other than being a scholar, Jude wants to be a Christian divine/mystic. His marriage to Arabella is the first of many obstacles hindering him from realizing his dreams.

Jude the Obscure

This session, I've spent a lot of time discussing, researching, and writing about Thomas Hardy's last novel Jude the Obscure. It is a tragedy and a depressing depiction of society.

    The tragic life of Jude Fawley can also be seen to symbolize the tragedies of hasty marriages, social ostracism brought on because of living by a different moral code than that of the society, poverty, and the abandonment of dreams. Disillusionment with organized religion which seemed cruel, civil law which seemed irrational, and natural law which leads everyone, no matter their supposed worth, to suffer and eventually die, causes Jude to eventually enter into a state of inertia. He resigns himself to death. What has brought him to this state?

    As a child, an orphan, Jude Fawley dreams of becoming a scholar in Oxford (named Christminster in the book) because his beloved schoolmaster does so. So as a teenager, he works as a stonemason to make enough money to move there and pursue his dream. But one day when he's nineteen years old, as he's walking down the street thinking on his future plans, he's hit by something. When he bends down to see what it is, he finds it is a pig's penis! Yep, a pig's penis! Thrown at him by the flirty, uncouth country-girl, Arabella, who works in her father's slaughterhouse. She wanted to get his attention...and she sure does. As with many men his age, his hormones shout louder than his reason. Jude abandons his dreams of scholarly pursuits to spend time with Arabella, who wanting to trap him into marriage, seduces him and then pretends she's pregnant so he'll marry her. He does the honourable thing and marries her although they are completely unsuited for each other. Less than two years later Arabella leaves him to move to Australia with her family.

    Free from his responsibilities to Arabella, he finally moves to Christminster. He seeks out his cousin Sue Bridehead and quickly falls in love with her. They are completely suited to each other, but cannot marry because Jude is already married. When Sue finds this out, she marries Jude's ex-schoolmaster, to whom HE had introduced her. Jude is devastated and Sue immediately regrets her hasty marriage. Although in Christminster Jude cannot enter any of the colleges because he is too poor. So having completely lost hope of marrying Sue and of becoming a scholar, he turns to alcohol. In a bar one night he runs into Arabella who had returned to England and is working as a bartender. She tells him that while in Australia she got married again thinking that no one would ever find out she was already married. She wants a divorce so that her Australian husband can join her in England. Jude agrees to it. Sue, meanwhile, is completely repulsed by her husband and leaves him. She moves in with Jude, but refuses to sleep with him until both officially divorced. Her husband agrees to the divorce on the grounds that she is having an affair, so it is a faulty divorce.

    Living together, unmarried, in nineteenth century England, the couple is shunned by society. Jude cannot find work to support them because as soon as it is found out that he is living with a woman, not his wife, he is fired. It is even hard for them to find landlords that will accept them as tenants. They have to move from town to town throughout rural England. Then, Arabella drops a bomb on them...she had been pregnant when she had moved to Australia and although her parents had raised their son there, her parents have decided to send the child back to England to be cared for by his biological parents. Of course Arabella does not want the responsibility of raising the boy, so she sends him to Jude. The boy had never been christened so is nicknamed "Little Father Time" because he is so serious. He doesn't find joy in what most children enjoy. At school he is ridiculed because his "parents" aren't married, so Jude and Sue decide to marry. Yet every time they go to a church or before the justice of the peace they think that the marriage vows are anti-passion and decide not to go through with the ceremony. But they let those around them believe that they have married to protect "Little Father Time" from taunts at school. To show Jude that their "marriage" is serious, she agrees to sleep with him.

    Fast forward three to four years. The couple now has two children of their own and Sue is pregnant with a third. On impulse, Jude decides to move back to Christminster. They arrive completely unprepared and have to find a place to sleep for the night. They are rejected everywhere because they are unmarried. Finally they find a place that will accept Sue to stay with the children if Jude sleeps elsewhere. Being in Christminster reminds Jude of his failure to achieve his dreams, depressing him. Sue is overwhelmed by their poverty, taking care of three young children with another on the way, and also feels guilty that Jude never realized his goals. "Little Father Time," now nine or ten years old, in his uncanny sensitiveness asks Sue if she is upset because of life's difficulties. Instead of soothing him, she verifies that life is hard and that it would be better to die young than to have to suffer through it. He takes this to heart.

    The next morning Sue leaves the children alone to meet with Jude at his inn to decide what to do about finding a place for all of them to sleep that evening. When they return to her room they discover a ghastly scene. "Little Father Time" had hung his younger half-brother and half-sister by the neck to hooks on the door. Then he had hung himself. With the shock Sue also loses the baby she was carrying. Obviously Jude and Sue are in great distress. Sue decides that the tragedy happened to teach her that she should never have left her ex-husband, from whom she'd gotten the divorce on false grounds. She leaves Jude and returns to her ex-husband. Jude is completely devastated; he's lost his whole family. Arabella learns of the disaster and tricks him into marrying her again (her Australian husband had died by this time). Of course he is entirely unhappy with her and when he falls ill and can't provide for her anymore, Arabella comes to hate him. He becomes an invalid and his dying wish is to see Sue one last time and to try to mend their relationship. He sneaks out of the house while Arabella is gone and makes the long voyage to Sue in awful weather. Sue rejects him, so he returns home to die. When he dies, Arabella is out courting the doctor, so he dies completely alone and abandoned.

SELLING OUT: version 1.0

I had just turned 21, never having tasted alcohol until the day before my birthday, and that was in taking communion. I was, and still am to a degree, a responsible, obedient citizen. I respected and listened to my parents who respected and obeyed the government. So, it wasn't that my parents were against drinking, Dad often had a beer with supper on smouldering summer evenings, it was just that I hadn't reached the age that had been decided on by wiser-than-we politicians as the moment I could start.

Now I had reached that milestone. At the time I wasn't at a party school at all. Far from it!
I chose to go to a conservative Baptist college in Tennessee mostly because it was cheap, so it would keep both me and my parents from going into debt. Again, a responsible decision. There I was taught that drinking was wrong for any Christian, even if they had passed the government-sanctioned age. What could this substance be exactly, I wondered, that it needed to be regulated and banned? Is it possible that something God created could be essentially evil? And wasn't Jesus' first miracle the changing of water into wine?

So I decided to write my essay for an English Composition class on whether or not Christians could drink in good faith. Desiring an objective approach, I decided to wait until after I'd done my research before proposing a concrete thesis statement as to alcohol's immorality or morality. Our professor brooded over us like an over-involved kindergarten teacher, explaining each and every step of the writing process in detail. When we came to "writing a clear thesis statement," he had us each read ours aloud. When it was my turn, I told him that I would study the stance Christians should take towards alcohol. Being completely imbued with the ideology of conservative Protestantism, he assumed I meant that I would write an argumentative essay outlining why Christians should not drink.

I didn't correct him.

So, although I found more Scriptural evidence supporting reasonable alcoholic consumption by Christians than not, I focused on the verses that could possibly, if interpreted within a conservative Southern worldview, convey alcohol as an immoral beverage for Christians.

I got an A.

But now I drink.

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Selling Out

The Sun Magazine's theme of the month of November is "selling out." I wrote this and sent it in in the spring and it was published! In fact it's the first one published in the "Readers Write" section! Now you can read it on their site. When I saw the theme at first I couldn't think of anything worth writing about, and then this flash:

I went to a conservative Baptist college in Tennessee mostly because it was cheap. There I was taught it was wrong for any Christian to drink. My parents weren't against drinking. Dad often had a beer with supper on hot summer evenings. Though I'd never tasted alcohol, I wondered why my instructors felt it should be banned. Could something God had created be essentially evil? Hadn't Jesus's first miracle been changing water into wine?

So I decided to write an essay for English on whether or not good Christians should drink. I would wait until after I'd done my research before making up my mind as to alcohol's morality or immorality.

Our professor said we would need to present a thesis statement before we began. When it was my turn to read my thesis for the class, I said I would "study the stance Christians should take toward alcohol." The professor assumed this meant I would write an essay on why Christians should not drink.

I didn't correct him.

Although I found more scriptural evidence supporting the consumption of alcohol than opposed to it, I focused on the verses that could, if interpreted a certain way, make drinking alcohol seem immoral.

I got an A.



This is the edited version that will be published. I think I actually like the version the magazine editor came up with better than my own. It is more toned-down and less negative. Perhaps I'll post the original later on so that you can weigh in on which one you like best. The only part that I wish they'd kept is that I had originally ended it with "But now I drink," which I think is much more fun. Oh well.

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Jehovah-Jireh

Beaming

Overloaded with benefits

You just keep piling them on me

And I am thankful.

Providing abundantly,

Beyond the requests lurking in my imagination.

My heart pushes hard against it- for I do not deserve your grace.

I am no more than a wretch, most despised of all mankind.

But Alas! And did my Savior bleed?

The crimson trickling down

Oh yes, that sacred head, He gave for such a worm as I.

The perfect Lamb

The sacrifice

faint ashes on the altar

Crushed, broken, slain. Redemption paid.

And I am thankful.

(inspired by: Ps. 22:6, 68:19, Eph. 3:20, and "At the Cross" by Isaac Watts)
I wrote this one about 7 years ago. I'm not too happy with how it came out. I would like to edit it. Any suggestions?

Worms Dying

This is the story I sent into the Sun magazine for this month's theme, Rain.

As soon as I could smell the dying worms bloated in the puddles in the driveway, I knew it was fishing season.

Saturday morning before the sun's rays poured over the low Appalachian hills out my bedroom window, Dad lightly tapped me on the back. I burrowed under my covers, warm, before I drowsily let myself be lifted out of bed by my father.

Mom said the worms came up to the surface to keep from drowning from all the rain. Those that made it to the surface then died in the muddy puddles. And those we used for bait also drowned, I suppose.

Sitting on a black garbage bag to keep my backside dry, Dad showed me how to put the hook through the two thick purple pouches of the worms so that they wouldn't fall off the hook (certainly leading to drowning). I did, until he added that the thick parts were the bloated stomachs of pregnant worms. I couldn't bring myself to push a hook through a lady-worm killing her babies. So instead of fishing, I emptied out the styrofoam cup of worms onto the black trash bag. There, I let the worms crawl through my fingers, tickling me. It didn't bother my dad that I wasn't actually fishing; at least we were spending time together. And I didn't mind offering him one of the worms when he needed to rebait his hook.

Rainy days meant indoor recess. I'd stare out through the blurry window pane imagining all the worms I could gather for our next fishing trip. The day after a rainstorm was the perfect opportunity for digging up worms under the swing set. I figured they'd have come to the surface the day before, so that those that hadn't drowned would not have had time to burrow far into the earth. Kneeling under the swings with my hands trawling through the mud, I pulled the worms up from their tiny hollows. Then I thrust them into my jacket pockets.

As a quiet, almost silent, child, the gift of worms was my language of gratitude. I so enjoyed my moments with my dad. Even at a young age, I realized that our relationship was unique. My girl friends' fathers rarely spent time with them doing "masculine" activities. I hoped that Dad would correctly interpret the meaning of my gift as a plea to continue inviting me to go fishing with him on rainy spring Saturdays.

I imagined how pleased my father would be as I held out the worms in my cupped hands- a living sacrifice.

But when I stepped off the school bus and threw my hands into my pockets, I only felt their shrivelled, hardened corpses. I'd spill their parched bodies onto the driveway- a burnt offering.


(this photo found in Creative Commons)

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Rain

When I was in high school I loved to sit on the curb outside my house and watch the warm spring rain through the street light's rays. Inside the house, the air was charged with my brother's abusive anger, my father's misplaced guilt, and the fear that our family was falling apart. Outside, I could let that anxiety wash away in the illuminated streams of rain. I'd get up from the curb, where I'd been crying, dejected and discouraged, pull out my arms from across my chest, and spin, swirl, twirl in the grace of God falling upon me.

This picture reminds me of the evening rain that inspired the following poem.

It's been raining a lot this fall.. cold, windy storms.

As the Sun Magazine's theme this month is "Rain" I offer you a poem I wrote several years ago on the very subject.

Liberating Rain,

Fall,

Fall,

Fall,

Upon my face,

Upon my bare legs,

Upon my arms extended toward heaven.



Rinse away the longing for my past.

Remove the impurities from my soul.

Reconcile my heart with all that's true.

Renew the life within.

Namesake

Sometimes I long for a name

like Rebecca or Katherine or Elizabeth

that would grow throughout my lifetime



But I can be none other than Sarah,

not Becky or Kate or Liz.



Then I look to my namesake,

    Laughing in Doubt

        Then

    Laughing in Joy



All the world blessed through the tiny seed buried

deep within her fallow soil.

Tainted by salted tears

    Flowing-

    Rinsing away all hope



So she laughed.

Its echo resounds throughout the centuries

And pierces my heart.

Its flesh bleeds by the identical saber of doubt.



And though Sarah planted an indestructible weed,

God brought forth her seed as an unyielding oak.



Overwhelmed by joy, she burst into delight

Once Again.

Naming her promised son Isaac: 'Laughter.'



My wound knits whole by the salve of joy.



And I no longer long for a name.

At the Dinner Table

"No, don't ask him, he doesn't talk about the war. It must have been traumatic for him. Probably best not to bring those memories back, especially now when his memory's so vivid, but his body and mind so frail." I explained this in French, so that no one but our friend Kathleen and my husband could understand.

We were sitting at the supper table at my grandparents', a nook in the kitchen. The dining room was for special occasions, like Sunday dinner, and tonight we had take-out from Dominoes. I had come down to central Pennsylvania, my childhood home, from Quebec City, where I now lived with my husband, Jean-Philippe. We tried to visit my family at least three times a year, especially now that my grandfather's health was deteriorating. On this visit, in June 2008, we had invited Kathleen to come with us since she had always dreamed of visiting Philadelphia and Gettysburg.
Between bites of pepperoni pizza, Jean-Philippe convinced me that Kathleen could ask about the war. "Sarah, she's a guest. It's okay if she asks. If he doesn't want to talk, he won't."
"All right, all right. Go 'head."
Kathleen turned to my grandfather sitting beside her and asked "So, Mr. Keller, Sarah says that you were in the war. Were you on the front?"
"Oh no, no," he answered, "I was a radio operator even then. They'd sent me out to California to relay messages from the Pacific."
My entire perception of my grandfather as a soul troubled by the nightmares of the brutalities he'd seen as a young man crumbled before me. The images of years on the front line in France killing his German "cousins" dissipated. It wasn't that he was traumatized by what he'd experienced at war that kept him from answering my sister's and my questions about it for school projects, but just that he didn't have anything to say. Perhaps it seemed sacrilegious to him to speak of his safe existence in a Californian office while his childhood friends had been killed in action. Maybe he was ashamed of his security in a time of insecurity.
The cloak of silence fell with the curiosity of a stranger.


(Inspired by the Sun's March 2009 Readers Write theme)

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Rap Spherical

I went through a rap phase a couple years ago. The Christian hip-hop forum Sphere of Hip-Hop inspired and motivated me to write a rap myself.

Here it is:

Philosophies and ideologies circle round, "spherical"/ been recycled 2,000 years, threadbare, our rhetoric simply rhetorical.   

Purely analytical, logical seeking evidence from periodicals, all else deemed magical/ Skeptical, cynical, while gazing eyes on the freeing scars, slightly mystical.

Generation to generation the lies multiply, no longer practical, but lifeless liturgical/ Spiritual pride blinds eyes to practices that are borderline comical/Flattered as the big, black crow, the cheese...satirical.

Cock crows three times, yet you deny the one you've seen eye-to-eye/ smells political, like Good Ole King Cole before his pie/ as he slices it open and the crows cry.

Proverbial camel through the needle's eye, Rich Young Ruler like the typical American guy/ Refused to give his all to keep his piece of the pie.



I still admire those that can expertly mix rhythm and rhyme with references to pop culture.

The Fence

Dad built the wooden fence around our yard to keep my brother and I from running out into the street. We were rambunctious toddlers and our yard led directly into a narrow alley downtown, so an inattentive moment could be disastrous for us.

I remember him digging deep holes and pounding the posts into the ground. Then he nailed two rails across the posts.

The screams of the belligerent teenager next door were not considered when constructing the fence. Mom and Dad figured her parents were dealing with a rebellious teen. Even when her little sister would cry and yell and kick when her father would pick her up from playing with me to take her to their cabin, Mom would try to soothe her. "You can come back to play after your trip. You can start where you left off." She didn't realize that the little girl would never be able to start over again.

When Dad read in the newspaper that the neighbour was being investigated for sexual abuse, he and Mom decided to put the house up for sale. The fence had kept us safe from running out into the street, but now seemed too weak to protect us from others getting in.

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Fences

This month's topic at The Sun Magazine is "fences." I've been lucky enough to never live in a home that needed one. Do you have an experience that portrays fences, literally or figuratively?

A Little Bird Distracted Me

A gorgeous day yesterday and even though I usually stay inside to study when it’s nice out, I decided to go outside to the picnic table.

Why, you might ask, would I choose to stay inside when I can go out on my patio? Because I get too distracted.

Case in point:

Yesterday, the next-door neighbour found a parakeet in the tree next to her balcony. When she went outside to see it, it flew onto her and climbed onto her head. She called down to me and another neighbour, who was washing his car, to ask if we knew who the owner might be. Nope. The bird then flew onto the balcony of my upstairs neighbour and when it saw me it dove right down onto the chair I was sitting on. Then it hopped onto my hand. Well, I couldn’t continue typing with a bird on my hand, could I?

When she (it looked like a girl bird, so let’s go with “she”) saw its reflection in my computer screen, she was here to stay. She even pooped on my “I” key!

(Notice the "Gerard Manley Hopkins" book...Good intentions!)

She passed at least an hour with me. My neighbour and I gave her water and the top of a hamburger bun to eat. She was so friendly, she even gave me kisses! I realized that I was talking to her as though she could understand me, asking her about her owners, her home, and reassuring her that we would take care of her until we got her home.

I finally realized I needed to get back to work, but I didn’t know what to do with the beautiful yellow and green bird. I didn’t want to let her go just to be eaten by a hungry cat. I asked around about a bird cage, but no one had an extra one. So I decided to go door-to-door to find the owner. I felt like a pirate with a parakeet on my shoulder knocking on doors. I subdued my desire to hurl “Aye, matey” when the doors opened to me. After visiting two houses, the bird bolted into the air through the branches. I was surprised how high she could fly after spending most of its life in a cage.

My nap yesterday was full of yellow and green blurs as the little bird tried to lead me to her home. And she COULD understand me after all.

My afternoon was enriched by the presence of a little bird. That distracted me.

Prize

One of my poems, "Kaleidoscope," has won an honourable mention (2nd category) in a poetry contest! Because I still hope to have it published, I won't publish it here, but if you'd like me to email you a copy, let me know.

This month's topic on The Sun Magazine is Choosing Sides. Luckily I don't really have anything to write about on that subject. When have you had to choose sides? What did you end up doing?

Crush

Their wedding picture on a cake for their 30th wedding anniversary.

I grew up with the story of how my parents first met. It captivated me. “So really, your neighbours thought Dad was stealing bikes when he was just trying to see you?” I imagined snoopy neighbours peering through the cracks in their venetian blinds à là Gladys Kravitz from “Bewitched” then dialing the police station on their old-fashioned telephones. So that while the 20-year old version of my dad was standing on tip-toes trying to see over the fence, the police car would turn down the street, sirens blaring and lights flashing. Dad would turn nonchalantly and walk back to his car convincing the deputy he was simply taking a stroll down Susquehanna Avenue.

I’m sure that the real events were less tailor-made for a television episode than my imagination’s version, yet it is the story of a true crush that has endured for the last thirty-five years.

~

Dad had first seen Mom at the hospital. He was a construction worker with a swollen thumb because he had hit his thumb with a hammer building the local McDonald’s. (As a child, while biting into my cheeseburger, I’d look up at the ceiling and wonder which nail had brought my parents together, hence bringing me into existence). His boss insisted he go to the hospital even though Dad felt it was way too minor for the emergency room.

The sixteen-year-old that checked him into the hospital was my mother doing her duty as a “glorified candy-striper,” as she calls it. Dad was immediately struck by her round eyes, long, light-brown hair, and fair skin sprinkled with freckles. As he returned to his plastic chair in the waiting room, he sighed. His eyes never left her as she admitted other patients. She seemed so patient with those unfortunate to find themselves in the ER. Before the nurse came to lead him to the doctor, my dad made sure to catch one vital piece of information: her name. Her nametag mysteriously read: “M. Rebuck.”

~

The next day, sitting on the porch steps of his parents’ house, watching his best friend, Joe, toss a football into the air to catch it again, he couldn’t stop thinking about the girl he’d seen the day before.

“Joe, happen to know any Rebucks?”

He looked back with raised eyebrow. “Um, sure. There was a Steve in my class in high school. But I’m guessing it’s not him that you’re wondering about”

Dad had to smile. “Well, yeah, yesterday, when I went to the hospital,” he said, all the while looking down at his bandaged thumb, “I saw a fox, a real fox, and all I know is her last name’s Rebuck and her first name starts with an M”

“You didn’t ask for her name dude? Lame.” Joe shook his head in exaggerated consternation.

“Hey, whatever. I’m sure I have a chance with this chick. More than you would, Wink,” reverting to Joe’s childhood nickname.

“Alright, alright, I’ll ask my girl. Maybe she knows your Rebuck.”

~

And sure enough, she did. There were Rebucks on her street and the middle kid’s name was Maryrose.

“OK, man, when I find this girl and we double date, I’ll buy you your supper.”

“For me and my girl?”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure”

~

He’d been back to the hospital several times during the week trying to see her again. He had nothing else to do—couldn’t work with a busted up thumb. But his efforts were fruitless. So now with the information from Joe’s girlfriend, he changed tactics, staking out her house, peering through the fence. But he never saw her and stopped going after the cop showed up.

~

So he went back to his old routine to the chagrin of the head nurse who was tired of seeing the love-sick young man lounging around the waiting room. One afternoon he noticed the schedule posted on the wall near the triage nurse’s station. He waited until she left her post for her five-minute break, then scanned the list for a Maryrose Rebuck. Evenings, she always works evenings, he almost clapped his hand to his forehead.

He drove home, took a shower, changed into a plaid shirt and a clean pair of bell-bottoms then returned to the hospital. His fresh face belied his sweaty palms. There she was. He waited until there was a break in the line of patients waiting to be checked-in. Then he wiped his palms on his jeans and stepped up to the counter.

“Hello, sir. What brings you to the hospital today?” She asked in her professional voice.

“You.” He immediately regretted the cheesiness of his answer.

“Excuse me, sir. I didn’t understand.”

He took a deep breath and tried again. “I came here to see you. Remember me? I was here two weeks ago with a fractured thumb.” He held it up to jog her memory.

“Sorry, I don’t seem to remember. I see so many people every day.”

“Oh, I guess so. Well, I was wondering if you’d come out to the races with me on Saturday night?”

The races! What kind of hick does he take me for! I don’t even know this guy! What a weirdo. Can’t someone normal ask me out? “Um, well, I’m busy Saturday night and really, to be honest, I don’t even know you.” She said it with a smile to not hurt his feelings.

“Oh okay. Some other time then.” He turned away dejected, but then turned back to her, “Hey, when’s your break? Then you can get to know me.”

Hmm…this guy’s perseverant at least. “Well in fifteen minutes I have a five minute break. Wait for me outside.” She’d noticed the disapproving look of the head nurse during the short exchange.

Great, a chance! “Okay sure. No problem. See you in fifteen.” Shoot, did I just sound like a dimwit?

~

Five minutes didn’t allow for much “getting-to-know-each-other” time, but Mom agreed to talk to him the next day during her break. It went on like that in five-minute snippets for over a week. Mom was flattered by his determination to spend time with her.

She started to talk about her meetings with her sisters. “Come, on, Mar, don’t be so cruel, let him take you out. He must really like you to come every day to spend just five minutes with you,” her younger sister Ellen advised. “What do you know about it? You’re just a kid,” Mom snapped back. But she knew she was right.

~

She agreed to go to the races with him. Dad thought (for some odd reason) that she’d be so impressed with the speed, noise, smoke. He even installed a new stereo in his car for the outing. She wasn’t impressed, but she tried not to let on.

Two years later they got married. Five years after that, they had me, soon followed by my brother and sister.

The crush has lasted all these years. Almost thirty-five in fact.

~

I was recently home for a short visit and was once again taken aback by their love for each other. Saturday morning they ate breakfast together, talking over the day’s plans while skimming the newspaper.

It was a rare Saturday when Mom had to work, so after breakfast, she went outside to start up her motorcycle. I was sitting on the living room couch when I hear my dad humming a song. How fun! A man humming at breakfast!

When Mom comes back inside, Dad goes downstairs to meet her to say good-bye. They kiss and Dad says “I love you.” Mom answers, “I love you too.” Then she says “Have a nice day.” Dad’s answer shows just how much he still has a crush on Mom. “Yeah, alright. But I won’t, because you won’t be here.”

From a writing prompt in The Sun.

Hopkins

So what AM I working on this summer?

I've been taking notes on all of Gerard Manley Hopkins's poems and fragments of poems to work out what his main preoccupations were when writing. I am taking into account recurring subjects (birds, trees, natural beauty), his main objectives (praising God, reflecting on God's creative power, despair when feeling separated from God), as well as how the rhymes and rhythms he chose add to the meaning he was trying to portray. He was a very innovative poet, inventing words for his poems, and concocting new poetic theories to master his art.

The BBC has done an excellent job of making his life and work very accessible.

A short biography

One of his poems, Inversnaid, is well explained. You can get a sense of some of the unusual vocabulary that he uses. Words like "darksome," "twindle," "heathpacks" especially interest me because he invented them. Were you able to understand their meaning before reading the definition? There is even a video with the poem being read aloud.

I've been busy studying and reading, so I haven't had as much time to update this blog as much as I would have liked. I would love to include your comments, ideas, inspirations.

The Poems of Gerard Manly Hopkins

Wedding Reflections

Last weekend, while I was in Pennsylvania visiting my family, we were able to pull off a shower for my sister. She's getting married in August. Since she knew that we'd have the shower during my visit (and because she's super smart), I didn't think we'd be able to surprise her. And she didn't either! An hour before the shower she told her fiancé that we wouldn't be able to trick her. But we did! And had a great time!

The wedding preparations remind me of this poem I wrote several years ago. 

Wedding Reception

Lavender petals

    strewn across the ballroom floor


Deluge of light-

startling couples from their oblivious embraces.

  

Lingering,

then beginning to stream

    underneath the exit signs



Until there's only me and you...



Alone.

Whirling, Twirling,

beneath the disco ball

Lost in this eternal spell.



I'm working on a longer post about "Crushes" as promised, which is why I haven't posted much recently. Hopefully I'll finish it this week.


 

Exercise

Why I don't exercise:

Treadmills were invented in 1822 as a punishment for prisoners!

Cherishing Carefree

Written August 9, 2001

Soaring past speed limit signs along route 80

Stretching towards the Lycoming mall



We three, momentarily oblivious to our heartaches.



Hair tangled by the fingers of the wind,



Throats raw from belting "Strawberry Wine,"

    A song we were too naïve to understand

    Only longing to be held under a 'hot July Moon'

while we were still seventeen.

Heads thrown back,

    Creases beside our eyes,   

    Our guts sore from shaking,

    As reflections on our past renew our faith in laughter.



This, this is a day to capture in the glass jar of precious memories.

Stored away for a lifetime.


 

Monthly Topic: Crushes

Last month I wrote about "Moving In," the topic of the Sun Magazine's Readers Write section.

This month's topic is Crushes.  Fun!  Write a little story, true or fiction, about a crush and then send it to me (sarah at productionmurray dot com).  I'll put up my contribution later this week.

Check out The Sun here:

Jonquière

The town from the autoroute

looks like a pincushion.



The wooden poles,

holding the lifelines that enter the veins of the village,

stick up between the squatting houses.

Erected in the ground,

frozen,

the poles cannot sway in the screaming wind.

The men of the village,

too are pinned to the ground,

working night shift at the aluminum plant,

while their wives get pedicures

and shop at the local strip mall.

Anchored to this life,

generation after generation,

like paper dolls-clothes pinned on.



The poles stand silent,

their glory ravished,

    ugly oval blemishes

where their vibrant leaves and branches

    were ripped from their torsos.

My Region

My region.  The familiar

            tastes, jobs, faces, and tree-line.

My region.

            The tilting of an eyebrow tells all we need to know.

That sense of “us.”  This is my region.

            Us. The restaurant in the gas station. 

Ply-wood cabins on frozen ice.

            Us.  Accent and the turning of phrases, so that wherever I go, I am known as “us.”

Back to

my region

Happy to Live in Québec

When Americans go on and on about how good I have it as a Canadian resident, I usually remind them of the downsides. Long waits at the doctor's offices. Shoddy service in hospitals. Lack of specialists for most diseases and conditions......etc..... But then I was reminded this week about just how good I, and all Canadians, do have it when it comes to health care.

My cousin's husband, Ben, found out he has leukemia. They were just getting by as things were, but now there's no insurance, no job, no coverage. His job at a garage didn't provide benefits. My cousin, Maria, stays home with their two toddlers and takes night classes to become a paralegal. Even if she were to get a job to try to pay for his treatments, she would have to pay for day care which would be a large percentage of her wages. And then who would drive Ben to his doctor's appointments? It seems like a dead end. Of course the hospital can't refuse to treat him even without insurance, but it will leave them in tremendous debt. How much? I can't begin to imagine.

So I thought, how much would it cost if my husband had leukemia here in Quebec? Treatments= $0. We bought an additional insurance for about $7/month that covers all expenses incurred by a hospital stay (gas, parking (the parking lots at hospitals aren't free here), a private room (the rooms usually have several people of both sexes), $50/day, and food). And if we had children, it would cost $7 a day in Quebec's government-subsidized day care. So for $7 a month and $7 a day (if we had children), we would be very comfortable. Sure, we pay a lot in taxes, but when the unexpected happens, it is appreciated to have our basic needs covered. Merci Québec!

Update: Ben's in the hospital and will be for at least another week.  He's very sick.  The hospital is helping them apply for Medicaid and even if they don't recieve it, the hospital will take on their case as charity.  So, it will be covered, but not without paperwork, headaches, and worries.  

Words transformed into art

The American artist Brian Dettmer transforms dusty encyclopedias and dictionaries into 3-D art.  He cuts into the pages, performs "an autopsy" in his words, revealing the hidden sculpture.  The words and graphics are in their original places.  Amazing!  

Yard Sale Day!

Inspired by Maira Kelman

I love it! The whole town outside, meeting each other, bargaining with each other, SMILING!

And we got some great deals too...
We've already used this one:
Mmmm...Yum...

Then I got this cute black dress for $2! I can't wait to wear it.
And I got what I was really looking for...a bike. It's so comfortable.

A lovely day.