A Light at the End of the Poetry Tunnel

There are only three more weeks left in the semester...that's two weeks of class and then finals. To be honest, I'm ready for the semester to be over. I've never really liked the last few weeks of any semester because it feels like they turn into this slow trudge towards the finish.

I've really been feeling this way about my poetry class. I mean, I liked the class a lot for a while, but once we got into the whole suicidal/homicidal/beastiality/adultery/creepy stuff, the class got kind of old. Yesterday I recieved a breath of fresh air in that class though...it was a light at the end of my poetry tunnel.

I've been thinking a lot about loss lately. Not for any real reason, but just because I'm the type of person that likes to hold onto things, so when I lose something or go through any sort of big change, I tend to internalize it and dwell on it. So because the past year or so has been one that held a lot of change for me (particularly internal change), I've just been looking back and thinking about things and pretty much living in a nostalgic funk for the past month and a half.


So this villanelle really resonated with me:


One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop


The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.


And then I remembered why I like poetry: I can always manage to find myself in a poem, especially when I'm not expecting to.

Hallelujah

Tonight I found myself sitting on my parents' kitchen floor sporadically singing "Hallelujah" to my dog in between polishing off the plate of cookies I'd just made. It was nice to finally catch some alone time...

I'd never really thought that much about the words to that song before. But tonight some of the phrases really stuck out to me. Especially the line, "Love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah."

The word hallelujah (and this is my super basic knowledge of Hebrew speaking here) means "Praise Yah" - or rather, praise GOD. I don't know if it's wrong to think of Leonard Cohen's song as being worshipful, but tonight as I crooned it to Puppy, I did.

So...having that small piece of knowledge in mind changes my thoughts on these lyrics a bit:

I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

There was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Maybe there’s a God above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Old Friends and New Places

This is my friend Lauren (who has very good taste...she picked out the necklace I'm wearing). She's six years old, which is the age that I was when I met her mom. Lauren's mom, Nicole, used to be my mumzy's boss. When I would go in to see my mum at work, Miss Nicole would stop her meetings and take me to her office and brush my hair while I played on her computer. Miss Nicole is a big part of some of my favorite childhood memories...she took me to see my first ballet, she gave me several very, very beautiful children's books (all of which I still own), and when she took me to the Renaissance Festival she bought me a gorgeous ring and she let me get my hair braided.

The most important thing Miss Nicole did for me was the way she always treated me like I was the most important person in the world to her. When I first met her, I was a scrawny six year old. She didn't have to take time out of her day to spend time with and talk to me. She didn't have to ask me questions about my life and what was important to me. But she did. She made a six year old girl feel very important. She's one of those people that left a big mark on me. She taught me the value of treating people (especially children) with generosity and kindness.

A few years ago, Miss Nicole adopted Lauren, and now I get the chance to spend time with both of them. This past weekend we went to the American Girl store where I reminisced and relived the magic of my childhood...I was a huge American Girl fan and I had never been to the store before, so I think I might have been just as excited as Lauren (But not as excited as the little girl we saw shaking the locked doors of the store before it opened!). I had one of the regular dolls and a bitty baby, along with some of the clothes and various paraphernalia that went along with them. As much as I liked the toys, I was desperately in love with the books. I read and re-read all of the Felicity and Kirsten books (both of whom they discontinued...).

Anyways, between looking at all the reminders of my childhood and being there with Nicole, I kind of forgot that I'm a grown-up now...or at least as grown-up as you're supposed to be at nineteen. I ran around the store looking at all of the toys and books, and remembering my elementary-school friends, Shelby and Juliane, and how we would play for hours and hours with our American Girl dolls. I've been feeling pretty nostalgic lately, so going to this store with Nicole was just feeding the fire. Then someone asked where my daughter was, and the magic was over.

I'm home.

This morning I woke up to the moon shining on my face through the skylight in my bedroom. Even though it was 5:45 in the morning, it was the best way possible to start the first day of my Thanksgiving Break.

I'm so glad I'm finally home. Even though everything at school was going swimmingly, I still found myself with a severe case of cabin fever in the days leading up to my break. I can't tell you how many times I paced back and forth across my room or how many poems I wrote about waiting.

There's just something about being here...I've missed all the stuff that goes along with it...drinking coffee obsessively...talking about crime and chemical warfare and the many working of the judicial system with my dad...comparing craft projects with my mumzy...teasing my brother...sneaking food to my dog...baking...reading...more coffee...sleep...wake up and repeat...sigh...I'm in my element.

(There's also something about being here that makes me think in ellipses...)

Commemoration of the Faithful Departed

My friend's grandma died this weekend. I met Me-maw once. She was a really funny woman. As my friend wheeled Me-maw through the nursing home we passed by a mentally handicapped man and Me-maw yelled, "That man pretends to be stupid." As awful as it was for me to laugh, I did. Really hard. She also like to sing. I played some hymns on the piano and she and my friend sang along. That was some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard.

This past weekend I got a hold of a couple of old Lutheran hymnals. I'm planning on using most of them to craft with (I have an AMAZING plan, but once again I'll tell all after they're done.), but I've kind of been using one of them as a pseudo book of prayer. There are prayers in it for almost every occasion and I found one commemorating the faithful departed. As I read it I thought of Me-maw...

Merciful Father, whose dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, rose Victor over death and the grave, we remember with thanksgiving your faithful people who have trusted in Christ, whose tears are gone, and whose sorrows have turned to joy; and we humbly implore You to strengthen us in the confident hope of the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come; through our Lord Jesus Christ.

A Love So Real

Last night instead of doing the ten million things on my to-do list I read a novel - a whole novel. Granted, it was a short one, but I still think it shows how good it was that it supplanted all of my other priorities. It was Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome. Let me tell you...if I'd been in any sort of crying mood this one would have had me weeping into my pillow through the night. Thankfully I wasn't inclined to be emotional last night, so instead it's just had me thinking all day today about the nature of love.

I would give you a complete run-down of the book, but I have this thing where I hate when people rely on a synopsis rather than just reading something on their own. So if you want to know what it's about then find me and borrow my copy and read it. Or go buy your own.

Anyways here are the basics that you need: it's a tragical love story about a man and woman who have fallen in love but can't be together because he's already married. (Also, props to Edith for keeping the whole story exceptionally clean...she really could have taken it into dangerous territory.) At the end of the story [spoiler warning] the two try to commit suicide together, but they both botch it and end up spending the rest of their (very long) lives being taken care of by the man's wife because they sustain some nasty injuries rather than ending up dead.

In my American Lit. class we're reading Longfellow, and today I read the poem "The Cross of Snow." Longfellow didn't have much luck in love; his first wife died when she miscarried their child, and his second wife burnt to death in a horrible accident. "The Cross of Snow" is about his second wife. I think it's a beautiful piece, but I know that most people aren't as fond of poetry as I am, so I won't make you read the whole thing, but I will give you my favorite line:

That sun-defying, in its deep ravines

Displays a cross of snow upon its side.

Such is the cross I wear upon my breast

These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes

And seasons, changeless since the day she died.



Poor Longfellow...I think a part of him died when Francis did. The world must have lost a lot of its magic and splendor for him...but obviously not all of it considering the amazing works he turned out in great quantities.

I can't imagine being loved by someone in these ways. They seem so...intense and scary and insane and over-the-top.  They remind me of something John Cusack says in a movie about a love so real that even when you're dead it hurts.

But I am loved in these ways.

I also happen to be reading a book called Girl Meets God. It's a memoir about a Jewish woman and how she learns to marry her Jewish upbringing to her new Christian faith. It's one of my favorite books, and I've read it several times, but each time I find new things in it that make me think.

At some point in the book she talks about being in love with her boyfriend and she says of him, " It feels like we have been in love a long, long time, and also like it is brand-spanking new, and will stay just that new forever. The only other person I have fallen in love with in that way is Jesus, and I hope that goes more smoothly. I hope I remember, when I'm bored with Him, and antsy, and sick of brushing my teeth next to the same god every morning, I hope I remember not to leave Him. I am not so worried that He will leave me. The Bible, after all, is full of stories about God sticking with His bride, no matter how stiff-necked and prideful and unfaithful she may be."

That paragraph really slapped me in the face...

You see, Jesus and I have been together for quite some time now. And as much as I hate to admit it, the wonder of Him has really worn off. He's not new and exciting anymore...I've broken Him in and adjusted Him to fit into my life. Dare I say that He's become mundane in my eyes? The wonder of Him dying for me has faded into the background. He's a fixture in my life, but He's not someone I really appreciate anymore. I'd be lost without Him, but I know that He's not going anywhere so I don't really worry about making Him happy anymore.

The worst part of all of that is that He's crazy in love with me. So much so that He gave up His life. I didn't do anything to deserve that love, but He's given it to me anyways...and He continues to give it to me.

I wish I could wrap up my thoughts with a nice little paragraph about how I apologized to Him and now it's all fixed, but let's face it: apologies only fix everything when you're five years old. I mean, I did apologize to Him, and He and I talked about the situation for a while, but it's not all fixed. And it's not going to be all fixed tomorrow. I've wronged Him. I've spent a very very long time disregarding the One who loves me the most. I have to re-learn Him now. I have to rediscover Him. And that's going to take some time.

But the good news is that He understands and He's forgiven me and He still loves me like He always has. 



Change

November made her complete appearance this morning...I know I'm strange, but I just can't help being in love with the cold and the rain and the damp and the gray...there's just something about this weather that makes me feel complete...maybe it's because it gives me an excuse to wear sweaters and scarves and drink that extra pot of coffee.

I've been thinking a lot about the future lately. Not the future in general, just my future. Although I have to admit, I've been worrying about my future more than just contemplating it.

You see, I'm worried that GOD is going to make even more changes to me than He already has. I don't want to change! I'm happy the way I am! In fact, all of the changes He's already made to me have been painful. Why in the world would I be okay with Him making even more?

And it was with those thoughts in mind that I went to chapel yesterday...

And of course, I read a book instead of listening to the speaker...

And this is some of what I read:

"We are, not metaphorically, but in very truth, a Divine work of art, something that GOD is making, and therefore something with which He will not be satisfied until it has a certain character...Love, in its own nature, demands the perfecting of the beloved; that the mere 'kindness' which tolerates anything except suffering in its object is, in that respect, at the opposite pole of Love. When we fall in love with a woman, do we cease to care whether she is clean or dirty, fair or foul? Do we not rather then first begin to care? Does any woman regard it as a sign of love in a man that he neither knows nor cares how she is looking? Love may, indeed, love the beloved when her beauty is lost: but not because it is lost. Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal...You asked for a loving GOD: you have one...What we would here and now call our 'happiness' is not the end GOD chiefly has in view" but when we are as such as He can love without impediment, we shall in fact be happy." (C. S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain)