Never too late to be a late bloomer

Trees are finally beginning to bud, adding another hue of fluorescent green to an already saturated palette. Tonight at dusk a deer purviewed the new greens at the edge of our backyard, leisurely nibbling this new leaf and not that, as if choosing which morsels to sample from the produce section at Whole Foods. We've waited a long time to inhabit this spring, forgiving today's chilly and rainblown below 50's temps. Of late I've considered the things that ongoingly occupy the geography of my psyche and have been struck by the fact that almost all of what is crucial to me, what is impossible to imagine being without, are things that came so late to me I remain astounded and grateful they ever showed up at all. Foremost, my husband, who swept me off my rollerblade-clad feet long after I'd relinquished the idea that I'd ever stumble upon the one man who could fuse his being with this complicated and contrary soul and show me in a thousand ways what it means to love, and which resulted in two radiant daughters, a constant heartbreak of beauty for which no superlatives suffice. And then, whodathunkit, poetry. I never read it, never thought about writing it, never did, apart from a very few "roses are red" stanzas in grade school. My first attempt at thirty, after relunctantly signing up for a poetry writing class when all other English sections were closed, and now it's a passion. Science. I finagled every means I could to take as little math and science as possible and graduate. Now I buy physics books second to poetry and fiction, making up for lost time and the great black holes in my knowledge. I had no idea of grandeur housting this whacky realm we call our existence, the poetry and paradox of creation. All the ways the mind can be boggled. Graduate school, Indian food, rollerblading, Branston pickle, yoga, vows, diapers, Borges, Buechner, Bruce Cockburn, Adam Zagajewski, Simon Veil, Kierkegarrd, Smog, Joseph Arthur, Ray LaMontagne, Patty Griffin, the Flaming Lips: all after thirty, some way after. Which leads me to believe there just might be more boggling to come. Better late than never, they say. Sometimes just better late.

What is the What

After an early false start which proved disastrous to area gardens and vineyards, Spring is again attempting to arrive. Our fox again ventures from his hole, birds are weaving a new nest above our front door, and leaves are timidly beginning to unfurl from tangles of brown branches. Nature is wearing a light heart on its sleeve but I'm still feeling a bit Apocalyptic. As I write these words a verse in Matthew occurs to me: "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." Ca-ching. I've just finished Dave Egger's What is the What, the story of Sudanese Lost Boy Valentino Achak Deng. If you are feeling a bit grumpy about your own state of affairs this substantial read (475 pages) offers a stiff antidote. Valentino's childhood odyssey is even more violent, gruesome and heartbreaking than the son's in McCarthy's The Road, and it actually happened to him.

I've admired Dave Eggers since first reading his memoir A Staggering Work of Heartbreaking Genius. Anyone who can make me laugh as hard as I did when I came to the stapler drawing in the preface has won a lifelong fan. My admiration grew as I became aware of the inner city literacy programs he's organized, the lavish attention he pays to the graphic design of the books he publishes through McSweeneys (sometimes superior to their content) and his many literary and publishing innovations. Now I have to admire his international activism. Along with giving Valentino a voice, he's using all proceeds from sales of the book to fund the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation which will go to, according to the website:

The rebuilding of Marial Bai [Valentino's village]: In the summer of 2007, Valentino will travel back to Marial Bai and begin work on a large complex there which will feature a library, a women's center, a youth activity center, a community gathering center, and a sports program.

College educations for Sudanese immigrants in America: As can be seen in Valentino's life, even with support networks, it's very difficult for Sudanese in America to attain college educations. The Foundation will help provide scholarships to aid the educational pursuits of Sudanese immigrants, and will assist programs that serve the Sudanese diaspora.

I often struggle with the idea that the art I spend so much time on should "do" something. Provide some benefit to the world. Eggers has figured out how to do both and do them well: he's contributed a work of art which has also become a vehicle to make some little part of the world a better place. Check out the website by clicking the header above. Then thank God for the pillow you lay your head on, the food in your stomach and that outside your door is nothing more menacing than furry foxes or twittering birds.

Apocalypse, Easter, Apocalypse, Easter

Friday night, while shopping at Target for Easter basket filler, I spotted Cormac McCarthy's newest book The Road. He's a favorite of mine and that book has been on my wish list since it launched so I grabbed a copy (the Orprah sticker fortunately removable) and tossed it on top of the mountain of purple Peeps, jelly beans and Robin eggs. Maybe not the most inspired Easter purchase but relatively apropos for Good Friday.
Then, yesterday, we imported a beloved Houston tradition begun a few years ago by the ever gracious and hospitable Marcella, our former neighbor, by inviting all the families on our "street" over for an Easter egg hunt. The night before Wayne and I sat on the floor and filled 12 dozen eggs while watching The Children of Men, a movie set in a bleak and horrifying 2027. The youngest person on the planet, age 18, has been murdered. The youngest person being 18 years old because 18 years prior, for undetermined reasons, all women became infertile and no more children were born. The world, bereft of the laughter, hope and imperatives of order children engender, falls into chaos and violence. I won't give the story away but a tiny ray of hope does finally puncture the endless wasteland of unmitigated brutality in the end. On that disquieting note I eventually dropped to off sleep but woke to a bright and sunny, albeit chilly, Easter morning. Church bells rang out as we arrived for Easter services and echoed brightly in our ears as left.



Later, when the day had warmed enough the kids could run for eggs without coats on, our neighbors arrived. Giggles and shouts rang out over greening hills which seemed, for a moment, to have emerged from a storybook. The adults migrated to the kitchen table (why do people have living and dining rooms?), the kids downstairs to the playroom, and that is where everyone remained for the duration. A couple of hours later everyone had slowly drifted home and after I had cleaned up candy wrappers and cake plates and retrieved the sun tea I had forgotten to serve from the deck, I settled down with McCarthy's book and didn't get up again till I finished it.
It's a riveting story, again post-Apocalypse, in which a father and son roam the scorched and deadened earth waging a daily war to procure warmth and sustenance, both of which are in extremely short supply. Their other chief occupation is avoiding contact with the few remaining humans they encounter who would waste no time in killing and eating them, should they get the opportunity. Yet from this feral wilderness, and with minimal dialogue, McCarthy wrings a portrait of staggering love--a father and a son's-- and their incessant will to endure without a lick of sentimentality. I was wrecked by the end and sorry the story was over.
I finished shortly before midnight and in the fog of this heartbreaking love story loomed the morning exam I had avoided thinking about for the past week. I was scheduled for a second mammogram after having gotten abnormal results on my regular yearly checkup. It occurred to me then, as I fought off rising tears, that maybe I should have saved the book for after the test. I resorted to taking an over-the-counter sleep aid, knowing I'd lay there all night no longer able to avoid imagining every possible scenario and never get to sleep.
I woke up bleary and quite anxious to get the thing over with. I could make the story drag on just as long as the interminable minutes I endured this morning (as did Wayne in the waiting room) between the mammogram x-rays the radiologist slipped out with, returning to shuffle me to the ultrasound room where I watched another radiologist coax a big, black lump into make a number appearances on the screen before she too disappeared ("That's not supposed to be there, is it?" I'd asked with the calmest voice I could muster) then reappeared with a doctor who introduced himself, sat down in the driver's seat and, grabbing the ultrasound shiftstick, went for a very long drive before finally delivering a verdict. My mind replaying every weird thing that has occurred lately, sifting scenes and statements for significance, grasping for a telling sign. "Will you ALWAYS be my mommy?" My daughter has repeatedly, and unnervingly, asked this week. Every fear you've ever had rolled into one. My body trembling on the cot.
Knowing one minute is all it takes for your life to shift forever. Yours and then not yours. Instantly and keenly aware of how stupidly you live your life, the sorry things you worry about, the wasted time. Recognizing this is the tightrope we all walk on, obliviously, day by day. One day Easter baskets, the next Apocalypse. One word and I will fall. One word all it will take to pluck the tightrope like a bow and sending me sailing. Or hanging on by my fingernails.
He finally said the word and it clanged in head like a bell or a benediction: benign, benign, benign. It's still ringing.

Kansas City clicks

For the tail end of spring break we escaped two hours west to Kansas City. I'm convinced those couple of days away from phone and computers averted a multiple homicide or at least a nervous breakdown. Mine. Had a great time squeezing too many things into to few days--the usual. Shopping in the Plaza; a visit to Crowne Center with stops at Crayola Cafe, Kaleidescope (Wayne and I booted kids from their chairs so we could dive on the scissors, papers and ribbons Hallmark provided to create art projects), and the Hallmark Center (I teared up at their foreign commercials like they were for Johnson's baby powder); art galleries in Crossroads; funky shops and great restaurants in Westport, the Kempner Art Museum, sushi, room service, a wonderful feels-like-home church service on Palm Sunday at Jacob's Well.


Got home Sunday night worn out from all the vacation fun BUT straight after work on Monday we had tickets to Neko Case. I scrambled for a babysitter, promising her we'd be home by ten, basing this on the only other concert we'd attended at this venue: Iris Dement last month. Iris came on at promptly 7, minus an opening band, and was finished, as I remember, before 9. Remembering many late nights stretching till 3 am after shows in Houston I thought, wow, these midwesterners really are the early to bed sort. No messing around. So we arrive in a mad dash at 7, worried that the show had started, but the Blue Note is virtually empty and the music we hear is coming from the music videos they are screening on stage. Hmmn.

7:30, nothing. Still watching the admittedly nice selection of videos, I start getting pretty uptight, knowing we have to leave before 10. 8:00 rolls around and Neko's band finally emerges and starts playing THEIR OWN STUFF. Songs containing the words Idaho and Hawaii. How long are THEY going to play? Who knows if they're any good, I'm manically watching my watch and wishing I had a tomato. Get on with the show! They play till 9 at which time they jack around with instrument relocation. THEN Neko comes out and decides to tune the 43 guitars she'll apparently be playing. She's satisfied around 9:23 and walks back off the stage. I'm hyperventilating now. It's a good 15 minute drive home. Our neighbor's daughter is babysitting and we know her bus collects her each morning at something like 3 am. We'll push leaving till 10.

At approximately 9:26 Neko finally comes on stage to perform. I'm timing each song. Normally I enjoy stage patter. Tonight I'm strongly fighting the urge to shout, "Shut up and SING!" At ten pm, a mere blur of songs later, we slither out of our seats and tear out for home. We offer apologies for our tardy arrival. I'm still wound like a busted clock.

We'd sat for 2.5 hrs. waiting for a show we watched for less than half an hour. The upside (there is always one, isn't there?) is that during the interminable prologue I heard some new music. The last song played before they switched off the videos blew me away. All of us. I didn't know who was singing it but I got home and googled my head off with the couple of lines I remembered. And viola! This alone was worth the price of admission AND the babysitter. Enjoy.

Spring breaks

When Nature Calls

If you’ve spent most of your time living in a city, as I have, you can come to regard nature as something quaint but archaic, like royals or covered wagons. You make plans to visit it on occasion, like the zoo or the library, because it makes you feel like you’ve done something wholesome. You carry it home in pots for your patio. Your knowledge of it may extend to the care and maintenance of St. Augustine grass, weed killer, doggie parks and the produce section of Whole Foods. You might then, in times of stress and exasperation with traffic, noise and crowds, imagine yourself sleeping peacefully out in the country, a cool, clean breeze ruffling through fields of tall grasses before it reaches the curtains of your open window, crickets chirping and birds trilling soothingly in the soundtrack. Guess again.

For the past week or so, our windows have been open to catch the incipient spring breezes and I’ve never startled to more spine chilling sounds. Whatever decidedly non-Disney creatures perform the howls, screeches, screams and wails that pierce the dark of night, other than the consortium of coyotes on the hill behind the house whose howls suggest human sacrifice is being performed, I can’t imagine. The other night I was convinced one the antique dolls I’ve been collecting lately had been activated and was speaking in a Chucky-like voice behind me. But then it came from the window in front of me. I decided not to investigate. In the supposed either/or instincts of fight or flight, mine is to play possum. If I act like I’m not here they won’t see (hear, eat) me.

So it has become more than a luxury for my rattled nerves that our house came with a screened-in porch. It’s been a bit of a hodge-podge of a room but, seized with the nesting instinct that possesses every pregnant woman including, apparently, Mother Nature, I have continued in my nightly and weekend frenzy of potting, planting, and, last night, conscripting the whole family in assembling a complete set of porch furniture. Let the creatures roar. The screen door has a lock. Only the breeze can get in.

A Rude Awakening

Yes, last week we romped in t-shirts and capris, teased by warm breezes and the scents of budding greens almost to the brink of packing away the salt stained snow boots, gloves and coats. But I became too busy, almost frenzied, potting vivid tulips, orchids, pansies and ivies to herald our first spring. For three nights I hauled in pots, scouring out old dirt and shriveled stalks and refilling them with pungent fresh soil and newly blooming petalled things until our house blossomed in color and fragrance. I served suppers outside on the deck as the sun slid down behind our field like a melting lozenge. We slept with windows open to the wind chimes and the trills of insects and woke to the hoo of an owl and a woodpecker already at work. And this is what greeted my bleary eyes this morning.








But after returning from a day's stint at a girl scout event, I found the snow had already gone though it's still chilly enough to require a coat. The packing and the planting will have to wait. Meanwhile, I think I'll read a book.

Two recommendations:


The Resurrection Trade by Leslie Adrienne Miller
I took a poetry workshop with Leslie in the early 90's which largely inspired me to pursue poetry writing myself. It was a treat to see her read last night in my new hometown, which was for awhile her hometown (she is a Stephens College and Mizzou alum, not mention an Iowa and Houston alum) and to say hello. This new book mines early anatomical studies of women's bodies to write about women's lives in a larger sense. Her reading was accompanied by slides of antiquated and disturbing anatomical illustrations and medical notes from which she drew her inspiration. I particularly enjoyed learning that certain afflictions of women might be attributed to a "dislocation of the womb" or "wandering uterus" (for example, according to Hippocrites, when the womb moves toward the liver the woman will suddenly lose her voice, her teeth will chatter and her colouring turn dark, the remedy of which includes pushing down below her liver while filling her mouth with sweet-scented wine and burning foul-scented vapors below her womb). Try this a home, ladies.

A lovelier thought: a woman is born with all the eggs she will ever have and, until birth, everywhere she goes she carries them with her. About her son, born late in life, she says in "Cherries":

The egg he was heard the voices
of everyone I desired and held itself

in some deep hormonal bloom,
taking whatever was remarkable
in my life into its possibility.
We learned not to hurry in Balinese rain,

to listen for the rumble of wild boar
in the Malvan woods. We climbed
into planes bound for cities we'd never
visit again...



And if fiction is your cup of tea, my newfound friend Stacy Barton's book of short stories, Surviving Nashville came out this week. Read the post of Dec. 20 to see how I got to "know" Stacy. I borrowed my friend Anthony's advance copy of the book and returned it afer I finished. My own copy is coming in the mail so I don't have it on hand to quote from. If you like stories with a twist, or a bit twisted, in a Flannery O'Connorish sort of way, you'll enjoy this book. Stacy has a real knack for character, place and voice, that sort of Southern Gothic thing, sometimes as weird, grotesque and sadly ironic as real life can be. This is her first book so support an emerging artist and buy a copy. She also has new stories in the current issues of Ruminate and Relief Journal.

Happy reading.

Reprieve

The snow has been gone for several weeks now and the warming days have definitely become tinged with spring. This past week it seemed the world stretched and creaked, and finally got out of bed. Suddenly people were everywhere and in very good moods. Giddy even. Especially me. Although the work day continues to keep me running from morning coffee to quick fix dinners in unrelenting overdrive, the evenings, once I've unwound, have sweetened and the weekend's offerings reminded us of why we moved here in the first place.



On Thursday night we heard poet Scott Cairns read from his wonderful new spiritual memoir A Short Trip to the Edge at Cherry Street Artisan. Anthony and Dyan were there as well as several friends we've met along the way. I met Scott last summer when I took his poetry workshop at The Glen in Santa Fe. Coincidentally (?), I found he lives and teaches in Columbia and subsequently we've become friends. He read some poems as well as the first chapter of the memior of which I read three more chapters that night. I finished it yesterday. It chronicles Scott's three journies to the "mystical Greek penisula of Mount Athos," home to twenty Orthodox monasteries and numerous "sketes". Only monks live there and only male pilgrims may visit. He goes to seek guidance on how to live a life of prayer to the extent that his life becomes prayer, to attain not silence, but stillness, to ascertain the indwelling presence of God. It was timely reading for me in that life of late has seemed chaotically out of control with me as the helpless, hapless victim of too many demands. So I am trying to be mindful of the things I know, or used to know, about how to order my life and priorities. Stay tuned.



The next night Scott and his wife Marcia had us to their home for some of Scott's fabulous Greek fare (spinach and feta pies, fish with vegetables, Greek salad and a tasty dish we dubbed giganticus beans) and to meet some artist/writer/professor friends of theirs, one of whom is a Buddhist monk. It was an evening rich in food, wine and conversation, after which we were sent home with gifts of "komvoskini", Orthodox prayer bracelets, for each of us. I got the sense that sometime in the perhaps not too distant future, this place might just start to feel like home.



Saturday held another treat: a all day writing retreat at Carmen's Cottage in Boonville, the next town over (I told you we'd moved to the Boonies) down an old highway that, once it gets past Rocheport, runs through flatlands until it crosses the Missouri River, upon which you take a left, go two blocks and you're there. About once a month, Carmen opens her turn of the century Victorian house to anyone who wants to come write for the day and share work with other participants. Her house offers seemingly endless rooms, nooks and crannies for the writer who desires space and solitude. The upstairs bedroom I tucked away into looks out to the street in front of the house and beyond to the Missouri River. I met a couple of new friends, joined them for a lunch of jambalaya at Emmet's in Fayetteville, and went humming homeward with the beginnings of a poem.

We headed for the Katy Trail on Sunday, mild and warm, stopping in first at the General Store where we greeted people we hadn't seen since December. The mood was festive and we carried that with us as we hiked the trail that, the last time we'd seen it, sported autumn leaves. The Canadian geese were making their way home but they, too, wanted to stop in first at Rocheport. The slightest green was seen leaking back into the foliage.

We've been initiated into the seasons. After a winter described as hard even by native Missourians, this is our first spring. I'd be so bold as to say we deserve it.

The meter is running

Numbers boggle me. The how many and how much: the number of grains of sand on the shore or stars in the sky, miles to the sun, speed of light, dollars of national debt, victims of genocide, heartbeats in the span of a life. The scale of things: the large (as of August 12, 2006, Voyager 1 was over 9.3 billion miles from the Sun) and the small (Planck’s length: a millionth of a billionth of a centimeter). I can no more wrap my tiny mind around these things than an agnostic can the Godhead. Not that I’ve figured that out either. On some things you let others do the math and simply stand there with mouth (and mind and heart) agape.

We had family in from England this week and as we cooed over the 2 year and 4 month old children of Wayne’s cousins, who just a minute ago were doing the same over ours, I was again taken aback by the speed of time and a great yearning to roll back the clock. Despite the mindblowing discoveries of quantum physics and its time/space paradoxes which might have you assuming such a possibility might exist, time moves in only one direction. Onward. The cream will not unpour from the coffee. The days of our toddlers toddling are over. Apart from checking out a DVD someday from St. Peter’s library and watching a replay of those days of our lives, all that is left of them is what my miserly memory deigns to ration out. Which is, maddeningly, not much. And certainly not enough.

So I find myself anxious about what is fleeting by all too fast and mourning the passing of events almost before they’ve dawned. A bit of a quandary when you are attempting to savor the moments of your life. I think that is the sadness that dogs our heels as soon as we are out of adolescence, if not before. The perpetual relinquishment: everything heading toward its end even as it arrives. Nothing sits still. And always the regret that you didn’t quite milk the occasion for all it was worth while you still could. As if that were possible.

We had a long awaited family visit this week but so much work to do that we barely spent time with guests who most likely will not be able to make it back for quite a long time. Time together was pushed to late nights and the weekend by the obligations of our continually overloaded schedule. We hosted a small, impromptu gathering of friends in their honor on Thursday evening and by late Thursday night I had the beginnings of a sore throat which bloomed ferociously by Friday morning. I dragged myself through the last couple of days we had with them, trying to keep my head from exploding. And now they are gone.

The idea in moving to a rural area was to tamp down our place in the rat race a few notches. So far it has not panned out; if anything we’re busier than ever. I learn what my friends are up to electronically—via their email, blogs, photos uploaded to websites. Who has time for a phone call, much less a visit? It’s a far cry from days I didn’t know were soon to be extinct—when women had time to hang out with each other and their kids. I’m sure there were days when my stay at home mom (SAHM) was stressed and busy (in which vacuuming inevitably played a part but whether it was the chicken or the egg is as yet undetermined) but what I remember is coming home from school and flopping down in a kitchen chair eager for the neighbor ladies to mosey over, once their own children had been greeted and turned loose to play outside, for their daily round of coffee, cigarettes, refills, gossip and giggles.

There was usually a table full, haloed by hazy smoke and affection that expanded until the last chuckle, when they had to go get supper on. Each day I wanted to prolong the minutes before they carried their cups to the sink and slid their lighters back into the cellophane wrappers of their cigarette packs, wanted to sit there forever listening to their stories, to Betty’s jokes in her Georgia drawl and Jan’s scandalous escapades, to watch Ruth’s eyes crinkle when she laughed, to remain in the happy fog of those fond and familiar fixtures of my adolescence. They each knew the others’ kids, our skinned knees, our first dates, our fevers and broken bones. There was an ease and fullness about their interactions that doesn’t replicate in lunch dates shoehorned into lunch hours or multitasking over kids’ playdates. How could I have guessed the tenor of those careless days would become as exotic as ______ ? (it occurs to me that nothing once considered exotic is still exotic. You can get anything from anywhere now, really. Only time has grown exotic.)

These manic days are the moments of my life ticking by, irretrievable tomorrow. I moved across the country in hopes that life would slow down enough for me to notice it before it's gone. Apparently the problem is not a matter of geography. A pewter bowl sits on my kitchen table holding walnuts and a nutcracker. It takes time to crack a walnut and chase the meat from all its chambers. An appropriate wedding gift from two of the ladies who graced my mom’s kitchen table for many a rowdy hour. One day I’m going to figure out how to order my life in such a way that I might find a few good friends sitting around my table in the late afternoon while I refill their coffee cups and we giggle at nothing much and our children store up fond memories of the ladies who laughed and the ladies who loved them.

Veronica Wipes the Face of Christ

Today is the beginning of Lent, an appropriate time to post the collaborative Stations of the Cross piece Wayne and I created for Station Six. The piece is five feet tall and you can't tell by the photo but behind the glass is inset a crumpled piece of cloth. If you have time to go by Xnihilo Gallery in Montrose, you can view this and all the other stations. Saturday, March 3, is an artist reception where you can meet and talk to the artists involved. This show is presented biannually and there will be a wide range of of representation--from paintings to multi media pieces. I actuallly recommend viewing the show at a time when you suspect not many others will be around; it's meant to be a contemplative journey.

The text reads:

Veronica Wipes the Face of Christ

and out of his sweat pours the salt of a million burnt backs,
and out of his blood the pus and poison of lesions and lepers
out of his tears the cry of every bruised and battered child,
every lonely, forsaken night, the dirt and spittle, drainage
of a wounded world from which he will not turn away

and for whom he climbs the hill.

days later she searches out the still moist rag
balled in a pile of soiled linen.
she lifts it to her face, closes her eyes,
breathes it in, finds it still reeks
with undiminished love.

The PB lottery

When my daughter missed two days of school recently with high fever and stomach cramps I figured we were all in line for whatever bug she'd caught. But we all remained well. So when I ran across the news item reporting samonella in Peter Pan peanut butter I ran upstairs to check our jar. Sure enough--we had the tainted numbers. What are the odds? Maybe I should start buying lottery tickets and opening those letters from Ed McMahon.

Stations of the Cross

Next Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, marks the opening of the Stations of the Cross exhibit at Xnihilo Gallery in Houston: a series of 15 devotional works of art, each representing one step in Christ’s journey to the cross. This show will feature sculptures, paintings, photography, poetry, and videography by local artists. While the traditional Christian meditation based on Christ’s journey includes only 14 stations, concluding with Jesus being laid in the tomb, this exhibit will feature an additional resurrection piece to be unveiled on Easter morning, Sunday, April 8, 2007.

Although Wayne and I had hoped we could make it back to Houston for the opening of this exhibit, it turns out we will have to depend on you locals to tell us about it. I saw this biannual rendering of the Stations Lent before last and was stunned at the impact it had. Physically moving from station to station in a space that is church/art gallery, encountering each artist's unique presentations of each, was an altering experience. This year Wayne and I were invited to collaborate on Station 6: Veronica wipes the face of Christ. It is the first time we have collaborated so the Station is especially meaningful to us.

So, if you can get by the gallery at Taft Street in Montrose, please post or email your impressions. I'd love to know what you think.

the Voice

Yesterday a funeral was held for woman who finally lost a 17 month battle with leukemia, leaving behind a husband and two young daughters, the eldest of which is the same age as mine. Her name was Chris Oden and she lived in Nashville. I did not know of Chris or her family a week ago and now I cannot stop thinking about them or grieving for them.

A little backstory: just over a year ago I became involved with the Voice, a project conceived by Chris Seay of ecclesia, described as "a group of writers, poets, scholars, pastors, and storytellers [who] have committed to work together to bring the Scriptures to life in a way that celebrates both beauty and truth. The result is a retelling of the Scriptures: The Voice, not of words, but of meaning and experience." I've had the privelege of "retelling" some of the psalms over the past year. The project features a (beta) website which I visit on occasion, especially when I'm feeling particularly homesick. Friday night, between other chores I was doing on the computer, I decided to investigate Chris Seay's video blog. The first entry was entitled "The Voice experiences loss" and it had been posted the day before. Had I not moved 900 miles away last June, I would probably have been aware of (and praying for) Chris Oden and her husband jc. jc (unbeknownst to me) is the brand manager of the Voice and works closely with Chris Seay. I listened as Chris sadly report that Chris (Oden) passed away the night before and felt deep sympathy for this young family and was very sorry I had been unaware of their story.

It occurred to me that I might on occasion post a link to a particular Voice podcast on this blog. So I clicked "send us your comments" and inquired if it was possible to do something like that. To my surprise I got a response only moments later. Tech support on a Friday night? Imagine the shock I felt when the signature on the email said "jc." After answering my techie question, jc went on to ask if I was the one who wrote Psalm 91. (I was.) Turns out the reason he was on the computer at that very moment was that he was working on his wife's memorial service and he was using the whole of Psalm 91--his wife's favorite scripture (and according to the family blog set up during her illness, the scripture she hung her hope on).

I have no explanation for why two precious young girls will be required to grow up without their mother. I don't know why what were the fervent prayers of many went unanswered, or were answered like this. What I do know is that in the very hour a man struggled to compose words that could somehow contain the grief and love he felt for the wife he expected to spend a lifetime with, a stranger who'd written his wife's psalm sent an email in the dark and that connection carried a tiny spark of light. A whisper of that Voice. Yes, I am with you. Still.

If you'd like to read more about the faith of a beautiful family, their blog is Chris Oden
Please keep the Odens in your prayers.

Snowbirds

Before my parents moved back to Texas a couple of years ago, they spent a decade on the west coast of Florida. We never considered visiting at this time of year. Living in Houston, we didn't need a break from the winter and their town swelled and choked with what my father, somewhat less than affectionately, called "snowbirds"--northerners (anyone north of the Florida state line) who, for weeks or months, found respite from the cold on Florida's sunny beaches. The same folks he grumbled about as he rode their bumpers on the one road on and off of their island were liable to be the same ones he had a good ol time with on the golf course. But no matter. My parents have now flown back to Texas and we now live in a place where we are thankful when the temps reach double digits or the sun appears at all. Where is Florida when you need it? The glacier that is the hill to our house is slowly losing its ice (slowly as a man balding). I attempted it yesterday without four wheel drive. So that is a small triumph. My survival skills are exponentially multiplying. People here keep insisting, "We never have winters like this," to which I say, "Get used to it". With the same cosmic logic that ensures if you wash your car it's going to rain, because we moved to a place we believed had mild winters, mild winters here are history, global warming notwithstanding. As soon as possible, I'm going to turn into a snowbird myself. In the meantime, my paper birds are keeping me company.

wayneleal.com

Though we are web designers and work on web sites all day long, or perhaps for that very reason, our own sites are always last in line. But we've finally got Wayne's sculpture site up and running. Currently, he's working on new pieces for a show he'll have in Columbia in July. And we've just finished our very first collaboration for a Lenten exhibit at Xnihilo Gallery in Houston which combines Wayne's sculpture and my text. I'll post on that soon. Meanwhile, enjoy a stroll around our virtual art gallery. His work, as always, is being extremely well received here. Needless to say, I'm extremely proud.

Do you ever feel sorry for this girl?

I hope she made a million bucks for this ad. I know that's how many times I've seen it. I wonder what high school she went to. I bet she had gold sparkly skates too.

Weird Continued

My friend Jenni has publicly tagged me so in the spirit of "if I have to, you have to", I'll comply and compel six more people to spill their irrational dirt. "The rules are as follows: Each person who gets tagged needs to write a blog post telling 6 weird things about themself... as well as clearly state the rules. After you state your 6 weird things, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says "you're tagged" in their comments and tell them to read your blog for information as to what it means."

1. I gag if I see milk anywhere other than in a glass or bottle. Dripping down the side of a glass, a ring of it on the table or worst of all, a milk mustache, makes me want to spew. Those billboards are torture.
2. I not only wear my shoes in the house at all times, I usually carry my purse from room to room as well. This is not primarily because I want my feet to stay clean (I do) but because of a peculiar laziness: I don't want to have to search all over the house to retrieve my shoes or any of the twenty things I'll inevitably need from my purse as soon as it's been put down in another room.
3. When I visit my hometown and have to go to the grocery store or any public place where I might see someone I know, I hide. Were I to run into the very same person in a city far away (which has happened) I'd embrace them like a long lost friend and be entirely grateful to see them.
4. If I saw a blackhead on you I'd be obsessed with wanting to squeeze it. The bigger the better.
5. I sleep with my eyes open. I've woken up to people making faces and gestures at me as if I were a guard at Buckingham Palace and they were orangutangs.
6. Did you ever see the episode of Friends were Monica attempted to prove she could indeed go to sleep at night WITHOUT putting her shoes away? Enough said.

Okay, here ya go:
1. Karen
2. Stacy
3. Amy
4. Wayne
5. Ben
6. Deeanne

Weird Pandora update

Since I posted on Pandora last night, I thought I'd listen today while working. Dum, dee, dum. Then I heard a lyric that sounded an awful lot like "you did time in Duncanville...". Did he just say "Duncanville?!!" Seeing as how I did a stint in Duncanville, namely from 5th to 12th grade, I thought, hmmmn, let me pause this song, google this guy named Rhett Miller, and see if he did in fact just say what I thought he'd said. Well, as you well know, one google leads to another. Turns out Elliott Smith, who the title song of Rhett Miller's The Believer is written to, grew up in D'ville. He went to my junior high and his photo is probably in my brother's yearbooks. Miller wrote it on the day he heard Smith (real name Steve Smith) died (reportedly of suicide) in Oct. 2003.

You did time in Duncanville
Part of you’s living there still
In a hole where the souls
Of the lost kids are saved.

I didn't know there were any rock stars from Duncanville, other than my friend Ben Huggins of the Galactic Cowboys . Maybe it's because I'm totally out of touch with my hometown that I don't have a clue. And then last night I got an email from one of my oldest and dearest friends from Duncanville. Suddenly, my childhood is haunting me. I bet tonight I'll have nightmares about the totally uncool gold sparkly skates I was forced to wear to the skating rink. And that Dorothy Hamill haircut...