Skip to main content

Sunday

I'm too tired to have any coherent thoughts, but it's been a few days since I've written anything, and even more since I've written anything about my day-to-day life. Today I went to a baptism after church with a few friends. It was a backyard affair. You know, the jacuzzi types where everyone standing in the crisp autumn air half-envies the baptizers for getting to lounge in the spa. Someone got stung by a bee.

They were the words-of-wisdom types. I really love those people, though I know I'll never be one of them. I'm alright with that. Not that I don't understand them, and not that I've never felt led to share a word, picture, idea that God has given me with someone... but there's a kind of community in which it becomes the predominant practice of their gatherings of faith to interact in that way. And that just isn't gonna be me. At least, I highly doubt it. It's like driving past a familiar street knowing you'll never make it down that way, but you recognize that it's got a really nice view. Something like that.

A while afterward, we went to Crystal Cove. There's something about that place that's just good for the soul. Also good for photography. Carissa's camera's loaded with beachy shots of all of us. I think we may have even taken a few of her just before the battery died. Home to no-bakes that wouldn't set and Catch Phrase at the living room window. There are lots of reasons to like that game, but the main one has to be watching it played by siblings and close friends. When they leap up and shout, 'oh! Oh! that time!! with the ferris wheel!' and the other one goes, 'penguin feet!!!' like it's the most certain and clear-headed association in the world. The eeriest games are with Stuart and Spencer. I'm pretty sure I remember a time when Stuart just glanced up from the word, without having said a thing, and Spencer blurted it out like a genie. The very word. Straight from one man's brain to the other. Creepy. Fabulous.

Now it's bedtime. This has been more than fourteen hours of straight socialization, and I admit to being a bit exhausted. It's more than I've had in a very, very long time. But it was good.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

window in the sub

Dear Nathaniel, I am microwaving pie that Mom bought up in Oak Glen this week on her way home from the orthodontist. As I put it in the microwave, I was full of sadness that I was not in Oak Glen with her. Why did I not go? I was working. I want to see the trees turn. I want to wander slowly through autumnal gift shops. Under the water, you cannot sense the approach of the seasons. Even here it is difficult because, after all, it's California. But I can still sense it. After three seasons in Illinois and one in Scotland, it must be with me for good. Or at least for a while. Because I am all abuzz with eagerness for fall and winter, for turkeys and dried leaves and Santa. I should start cooking again this fall. Fall foods are my favorite. Baked squash dripping with melted butter and brown sugar, pumpkin soup... this year, if I have enough money, I will put together a holiday dinner for my friends. And we will drink Scandinavian mulled wine, which is the most wonderful thing I have e...
13 comments
Read more

At the close of nine years

I'm moving to Texas in less than two months. I've lived in Long Beach now for nine years. Already I have stacks of books covering my dining room table that I'll be reading for my PhD program in the fall. I've quietly begun the tedious work of sorting and cleaning everything in my little apartment. I'm scheduling all of my last days with friends, moving through my calendar in reverse order from when I expect to slip into my car and drive away. This is the longest I've lived in one place, so I've never really experienced a leaving quite like this before. I remember the day I left Wheaton, closing the bedroom door on my best friend, walking down to Chaeli's car so she could drive me to the airport. (The greatest grace of Texas is that she will be there. Some friends we never lose completely.) I remember leaving California for Scotland—walking away from my mother in the Palm Springs airport. We leave people who have changed us, and we leave places that ha...
1 comment
Read more
because you were all wondering what I'm writing my dissertation on, here's a brief synopsis of my 'research context': When James Macpherson published his Fragments of Ancient Poetry in 1760, he went to great lengths to make the Fragments appear to be authentic remains of an ancient, heroic oral tradition. His reasons for this were largely political, and as such, influenced the content of the epics themselves. As an attempt to establish a particularly Scottish identity, the poems were quite effective. However, to do so required both a simplification and a manipulation of traditional mythology. Stripped of anagogical significance, the Ossian epics more or less represented an Enlightenment version of history, tradition, and mythic heritage. The stories themselves were changed by their very purpose and in turn changed the manner of representing myth in future narratives. Moreover, the emphasis on the Ossian epics as authentic tales from the past, as ‘fragments,’ served...
6 comments
Read more