This morning is quiet and sunny. There is a light cawing and warbling of birds, a soft sweeping of an old man raking leaves into a pile, the scratching of dead leaves as they blow across the pavement. I witness this morning from the inside of a personal silence. Somewhere, something is left undone, and deep inside I know there's a reckoning to face. In the meantime I have this sunny quietude and the simplicity of only Wednesday's homework to turn in, which is a relief.
I'm smiling as a philosophical gesture to my future. I wonder if I'm shaping or being shaped by the silence and by the sadness I've felt so often lately.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Cock-a-roach-a
There was a cockroach in my house this morning.
I stepped on it.
And I left it on the floor because I was late for school and needed to come home later to make sure that it was really a cockroach and not some sort of junebug.
But when I got home it was gone.
I don't think I killed it. Either that or the cockroach mafia came and cleaned up the evidence.
Sickening.
I don't want to eat here ever again.
I stepped on it.
And I left it on the floor because I was late for school and needed to come home later to make sure that it was really a cockroach and not some sort of junebug.
But when I got home it was gone.
I don't think I killed it. Either that or the cockroach mafia came and cleaned up the evidence.
Sickening.
I don't want to eat here ever again.
Time Zones
Sometimes I feel as though I'm alone with my grief here in Kentucky.
It is my constant companion.
But I dread how quickly the months are passing and how the gauze that separates heaven and earth is thickening with each passing day, and will continue to until my ability to peer into eternity is completely obscured.
That's the thing about death. One thing about death, I guess: this world we live in seems so faint, so fragile and so temporary when you experience a moment of eternity. For a short time I have been permitted to stand with half my soul here on earth and the other half in a place so much more permanent than here--and as the days pass, that sense of what is beyond this time is less tangible, less immediate.
I don't know how I feel about that, either.
It is my constant companion.
But I dread how quickly the months are passing and how the gauze that separates heaven and earth is thickening with each passing day, and will continue to until my ability to peer into eternity is completely obscured.
That's the thing about death. One thing about death, I guess: this world we live in seems so faint, so fragile and so temporary when you experience a moment of eternity. For a short time I have been permitted to stand with half my soul here on earth and the other half in a place so much more permanent than here--and as the days pass, that sense of what is beyond this time is less tangible, less immediate.
I don't know how I feel about that, either.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Roy Orbison, That Heartbreak-er
When I was driving down the street in Nashville last week, a Roy Orbison classic song came on the radio. I sang along as loud as I could, belting every syllable I knew and humming over the ones I didn't. Tears pooled in my eyes and streamed down my cheeks and I kept driving as I kept singing as I kept crying.
Two Christmases ago when my parents came to Nashville to stay with me, I was jazzed about showing them "my town." We went to all of my favorite places: Noshville (seated next to Amy Grant!), Jackson's (we argued a lot there), FIDO (I think it may have been a little confusing for them), and the Loveless Cafe (oh, the biscuits).
That was also the year that my dad picked out a Christmas gift for me completely on his own, and it's the only time that I can remember him doing that. He was excited about it, telling me in advance, preparing me for something special. The gift was two music CDs; it was actually two different albums from the five sibling piano quintet, "The 5 Browns." The special-ness of this gift was that--I guess you could say that we shared a love; a zeal really, for wild and erratic piano players. I can remember that once, during one of his mid-afternoon phone calls, I became so sentimental about Liberace that I started searching for YouTubes of his performances, and narrated his theatrics over the phone to my dad.
On that Christmas trip, because of some degrading conversational remark of mine about the irony of the Nashville music scene, Dad began a historical talking tour of Roy Orbison's greatest life moments, including a recounting of wise and eloquent quotes from Roy himself.
Before that moment, I didn't realize that Dad loved Roy Orbison. When I think of the "music of my childhood," like so many American children living the 1980s television dream, my natural inclination is to think of the echoes of NASCAR engines around a track or the auctioneer-like WWF announcers shouting, "HERE COMES JAKE THE SNAKE WITH A CHAIR!!"
Just as on other occasions, I learned that Dad had a whole storehouse of personal feelings that I didn't know about. For every connection we shared, for every moment of collaboration between us, there were equally as many mysteries that shadowed our knowledge of one another, and so many, many things that we didn't share in our thirty years together. After Dad mentioned Roy singing for "The Traveling Wilburys" and vehemently persuaded me to listen to them, I ran up to my room and under the pretext of getting ready to leave for lunch, downloaded the whole collection of songs off iTunes and burned him a copy to take home.
In all that you have, there is something that you still cannot attain. Roy Orbison. Roy Orbison and all the things he represents to me--all the mysteries locked inside Dad's heart that faded away with the turning off of that damned machine.
Two Christmases ago when my parents came to Nashville to stay with me, I was jazzed about showing them "my town." We went to all of my favorite places: Noshville (seated next to Amy Grant!), Jackson's (we argued a lot there), FIDO (I think it may have been a little confusing for them), and the Loveless Cafe (oh, the biscuits).
That was also the year that my dad picked out a Christmas gift for me completely on his own, and it's the only time that I can remember him doing that. He was excited about it, telling me in advance, preparing me for something special. The gift was two music CDs; it was actually two different albums from the five sibling piano quintet, "The 5 Browns." The special-ness of this gift was that--I guess you could say that we shared a love; a zeal really, for wild and erratic piano players. I can remember that once, during one of his mid-afternoon phone calls, I became so sentimental about Liberace that I started searching for YouTubes of his performances, and narrated his theatrics over the phone to my dad.
On that Christmas trip, because of some degrading conversational remark of mine about the irony of the Nashville music scene, Dad began a historical talking tour of Roy Orbison's greatest life moments, including a recounting of wise and eloquent quotes from Roy himself.
Before that moment, I didn't realize that Dad loved Roy Orbison. When I think of the "music of my childhood," like so many American children living the 1980s television dream, my natural inclination is to think of the echoes of NASCAR engines around a track or the auctioneer-like WWF announcers shouting, "HERE COMES JAKE THE SNAKE WITH A CHAIR!!"
Just as on other occasions, I learned that Dad had a whole storehouse of personal feelings that I didn't know about. For every connection we shared, for every moment of collaboration between us, there were equally as many mysteries that shadowed our knowledge of one another, and so many, many things that we didn't share in our thirty years together. After Dad mentioned Roy singing for "The Traveling Wilburys" and vehemently persuaded me to listen to them, I ran up to my room and under the pretext of getting ready to leave for lunch, downloaded the whole collection of songs off iTunes and burned him a copy to take home.
In all that you have, there is something that you still cannot attain. Roy Orbison. Roy Orbison and all the things he represents to me--all the mysteries locked inside Dad's heart that faded away with the turning off of that damned machine.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Divide & Conquer
And I prayed that God would give me the grace to study and study and study and...
to study as if my life depended upon it.
But it's not my life that depends on it; it's all the people who won't be enrolled in college this year...or ever. All the people who walk through the doors that open to them, who make choices to maximize their own utility function and who may not know how to solve the problems in their neighborhoods and communities.
Some lives revolve so tightly around worry and despair, that by gripping to hold on in the midst of that spinning, they lack enough insight into the problems to know how to climb above them. When your biggest concern is holding on for dear life, climbing is out of the question.
So as I was praying, it immediately became obvious that the reason I need grace to study, is that someone's life depends on it.
to study as if my life depended upon it.
But it's not my life that depends on it; it's all the people who won't be enrolled in college this year...or ever. All the people who walk through the doors that open to them, who make choices to maximize their own utility function and who may not know how to solve the problems in their neighborhoods and communities.
Some lives revolve so tightly around worry and despair, that by gripping to hold on in the midst of that spinning, they lack enough insight into the problems to know how to climb above them. When your biggest concern is holding on for dear life, climbing is out of the question.
So as I was praying, it immediately became obvious that the reason I need grace to study, is that someone's life depends on it.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Those Days
I'm not sure I ever recovered from losing my daily doses of Amy and Stephanie. Those were different days. So much ennui, so much frustrated optimism.
Everybody needs a few extremely intelligent and witty sounding boards. I've had more than my fair share at times; I realize that.
Everybody needs a few extremely intelligent and witty sounding boards. I've had more than my fair share at times; I realize that.
Friday, October 30, 2009
First, Do No Harm
"Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm -- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it in the endless struggle to think well of themselves."
-T. S. Eliot
-T. S. Eliot
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