My Trouble

When I read the first few lines of this story, I sighed and thought that it was going to be perhaps the most depressing text yet. It also took a while for me to get used to its rhetoric and flow -- it seemed very choppy and disjolting, but after a little while I found that it read fairly quickly.  It was very sad, but in a different way, I suppose.  I felt like I wanted to give every character in this story a hug.  Each of them seemed vulnerable and hurt.  But hurt seems like too nice of a word.  Rather, each of them had gaping, bleeding wounds. 
  "My trouble made his real."  Sometimes when we suffer we are able to more effectively relate to others, if we allow ourselves, of course.  We are better able to look through the masks of everyone around us and see them in their vulnerability.  This story mentions faces quite a bit, I noticed.  The face of the bartender which seemed to turn into the smile of a little girl, the faces of the people on the street watching the musicians, Sonny's face tinted with worry, "the way shadows play on a face which is starting into the fire."  Someone I knew once said, "I wear so many masks in one day, that in the evening when I'm in my room all by myself, I can't remember which one is really me."
   I especially liked the scene in the nightclub:
 "Then Creole stepped forward to remind them that what they were playing was the blues.  He hit something in all of them, he hit something in me, myself, and the music tightened and deepened, apprehension began to beat the air.  Creole began to tell us what the blues were all about.  They were not about anything very new.  He and his boys up there were keeping it new, at the risk of ruin, destruction, madness, and death, in order to find new ways to make us listen.  For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard.  There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness."
But oh, there is another tale!  I think that's why I wanted to hug them all.  One of my classmates laughingly said about a literary character, "She needs Jesus."  My classmate was right.  (I think the author did a great job depicting a group performance.  Chamber music is also this way -- asking, answering, and discussing through instruments.) 
But I can't hug these people, because they don't exist.  I suppose I'll have to find someone who's real, and I daresay I won't have to look very far.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN0_L-byqnc

Begin to See

This portion of the book contains so many different emotions and concepts that I am not sure where to begin.  Why is it so difficult to write about this?  It's alright once I "get something going", but the beginning is always the worst part. 
   "When I lay these questions before God I get no answer.  But a rather special sort of 'No answer.' It is not the locked door.  It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze.  As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question.  Like, 'Peace, child; you don't understand.'
   Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable?  Quite easily, I should think.  All nonsense questions are unanswerable.  How many hours are there in a mile?  Is yellow square or round?  Probably half the questions we ask -- half our great and theological and metaphysical problems -- are like that."
  A special sort of No Answer.  I have felt this too, and find it to be the greatest consolation.  God understands, and I don't -- not only that, but I don't need to.  He is on an infinitely greater plane, able to comprehend and see things far beyond my reasoning or imagination.  No question is perhaps more irritating to me than, "Why do bad things happen to good people?", as if there were anything but bad people.  I suppose it's not actually the question which is the problem, but our feeble and ignorant attempts to answer it fully.  Give up.  I don't mean this in a pessimistic way.  There is something wonderful about giving up in this area.  When we realize that we'll never understand, we are saying, "I trust You," and I think a great part of our faith relies on it. 
   "On the other hand, 'Knock and it shall be opened.'  But does knocking mean hammering and kicking the door like a maniac?  After all, you must have a capacity to receive, or even omnipotence can't give.  Perhaps your own passion temporarily destroys the capacity."
  I really loved this passage.  I can remember several times when I've felt this way, too.  Another part of the first verse he referred to is, "Seek, and you will find."  But when we are in the kind of state that Lewis was describing, we are not seeking at all.  We are simply looking into ourselves, seeing what we think is emptiness, and crying out in unbelief, "God isn't here!"  It reminds me of a parent patiently holding their child while they thrash about in a tantrum, or that strange sensation you get just after crying for a very long time.  There is a sense of exhaustion, but also a faint peace.  I think that is a better place to recieve God's love.    

As a comment to this video, someone ironically said, "Pity people like Kempff have to die.  It's only when they have gone that you realize how much you miss them and just how good they were."  Apparently her name was Catherine.

Yea, Though I Walk

I found this text to be quite compelling.  I decided to read the whole thing, but I will try to limit my comments in this post to the first two chapters.  I suppose it reminded me of a kind of freewrite.  I feel as though Lewis was recording thoughts just as they came - and there are a slew of them on each page. From memories of his beloved wife to questions like "Where is God?", his thoughts wind and flow into each other in a rather "random" way, much the way you would talk to a very close friend.  Maybe not even a close friend, perhaps more like the things you think secretly to yourself, or only admit to one person.
  The first sentence was very intruiging to me.  I appreciated the way he attempted to describe the feeling of grief, comparing its symptoms to that of fear.  As I read on, my heart was pounding and I had flutterings in my stomach as well, but I think that really was fear.
  Many things stood out to me - too many to discuss in one post.  I underlined the things that I thought were novel, and put in parentheses concepts that I felt I could relate to.  Here is one which I put in parentheses:
"You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.  It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box.  But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a recipice.  Wouldn't you then first discover how much you really trusted it?"

Will we love and trust Him in the shadows like we did in the green pastures?  When the room goes pitch black is when you discover what you really believe, how much you need Him, and eventually, how much He is there.         

Walking in the shadows.  I guess that's one good way to define grief.  Things are blurry and you aren't even sure half of the time what you are thinking.  As Lewis said, he only jotted down "one thought in a hundred."  But I think it's important to remember that when the room goes dark and you're faced with your fundamental beliefs, or lack thereof, you aren't alone.  I think God is holding your hand the whole time - holding you, rather - and can guide you to a deeper understanding, which is what I think he did for C.S. Lewis.  It reminds me of Professor Corrigan's essay, Darkness, Questions, Poetry and Spiritual Hope in which he writes:

"Jesus promises, 'I will never leave you.'  The presence of God with us in the dark makes it possible for us to sit with the question of darkness without being destroyed by madness."

When is grief over?  Does it ever end?  These are some questions Lewis addresses as well.  I don't know.  But whatever the emotional outcome in this life, God's presence with us now makes today all the brighter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRzvE-1P9xA

Comforted Together

There were several vivid images that came to my mind while reading the Book of Joel -- so many, that I had to narrow down the list of quotes I would mention in my post.  I enjoy reading literature that is descriptive, but leaves room for the imagination as well.  Here are the images that stood out to me the most, in chronilogical order:
"What the gnawing locust has left, the swarming
locust has eaten;
And what the swarming locust has left, the
creeping locust has eaten;
And what the creeping locust has left,
the stripping locust has eaten."

The image in my mind is of these four locusts each eating part of a leaf and putting it down for the next one to come, until the last one "strips" the very last part of the leaf from its stem.  The locusts are all green, the color of new grass.  The gnawing locust is the most disturbing, although it's not a particularly frightening or unsettling image as a whole.

"Its teeth are the teeth of a lion,
And it has the fangs of a lioness."

I see two lion heads against a white background.  The first one, the male lion, I can't make out very clearly, but his head is turned to the side, facing right.  The lioness is much more detailed, and I can see her whiskers bunch together as her lips curl to reveal long fangs.  It's a gruesome snarl, but it's still not too disturbing. 


"Come, spend the night in sackcloth"

This is, perhaps, the darkest image I encountered in the text.  I envision several men wearing sackcloth, but it's a dark, grey-black color, contrary to the normal potato-sack-brown that I usually think of when I hear "sackcloth".  They are bent over, and one looks like he might be grabbing his stomach, as if something is paining him greatly.  It's night, and the background is very black.


Do not fear, O land, rejoice and be glad,
For the Lord has done great things.
Do not fear, beasts of the field,
For the pastures have turned green,
For the fig tree has borne fruit,
The fig tree and the vine have yielded in full.

This was one of my favorite images.  I believe I was influenced by the last class assignment (going outside to read to nature) when I re-read this passage today.  On Tuesday, I sat on the very edge of a lake, and all around me were patches of clover -- a green so bright I can't describe it.  The grass swayed a little bit in the wind, and the water seemed still and moving at the same time.  I thought of how the Bible says that all of creation groans together, "and suffers the pains of childbirth together..."  When I read to it about God's comfort, it was a feeling I haven't experienced before, and it's difficult to explain.  God made nature, and he made me, which means we are both part of creation, groaning together.  God tells us both not to fear -- both me and the little ducks in the water, looking right at me.  For a moment, I was soothed, and I like to think that in some figurative way, the rest of creation breathed a small sigh of relief.
   I didn't read this passage aloud on that day, but when I read it now, my mind is filled with those images - of creation being comforted.

"Let the weak say, 'I am a mighty man!'"

I absolutely love this verse.  I see an elderly man with a long beard, missing some teeth, raising a thin, feeble hand with a pointed finger and proclaiming, "I am a mighty man!"  He smiles that very real smile that exeplifies, not just happiness, but a supernatural strength and hope.     

The Field is Ruined

It was difficult to distance myself from the meaning of this Book, and focus on which passages were most pleasing to my ear.  Land becoming desolate certainly doesn't "sound" nice in one way, but when I tried listening to the rythm of the syllables and the beauty of the words themselves, I began to appreciate certain passages. 

The field is ruined,
The land mourns;
For the grain is ruined,
The new wine dries up,
Fresh oil fails.
Be ashamed, O farmers,
Wail, O vinedressers,
For the wheat and the barley,
Because the harvest field is destroyed.

I like the rythmic difference between the first, third, and fourth lines and the second and fifth lines.  I also like the sound of the words "fresh oil", "land," "harvest," and especially "vinedresser."  Something about the sound of the last line is very sobering.  "Because the harvest field is destroyed."  The word "destroyed" followed by a peiod -- a pause -- seems significant.  I like the personification of the land, which "mourns", and the wheat and barley, which the farmers should "mourn for."  This portion of the text seems to flow from and to other passages very well, and yet it powerfully stands alone.

Another favorite of mine is:

Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe
Come, tread, for the wine press is full;
The vats overflow, for their wickedness is great.

I like the words "sickle", "ripe", "tread," "wine press", and "vats."  This passage brings purple to my mind, and I like its rythm as a whole.       

I also liked:

And in that day
The mountains will drip with sweet wine,
And the hills will flow with milk,
And all the brooks of Judah will flow with water;
And a spring will go out from the House of the LORD
To the valley of Shittim.

The phrase "in that day" are chilling for some reason.  I love the idea of mountains dipping with wine and hills flowing with milk, which doesn't technically happen.  The words "drip", "hills", "flow," "milk", "brooks", "spring", and "valley" stand out to me as well.  I like the phrase, "...a spring will go out."  I like the way the words feel in my mouth as I'm saying them. 

I think this is an interesting and somehow delightful way of reading, especially the Bible.  Perhaps remembering (that's another one of my favorite words) the way words sound and feel could help us retain more Scripture in our minds.           

Violets aren't Blue

Roses can be red, but violets aren’t blue.  They’re purple, don’t you agree?
It’s dangerous to say
That things aren’t the way
They are, for the sake of poetry.
Roses can be red, but they can also be pink,
Orange, yellow, or white.
But do you think if I asked you
To answer me true
On the color of violets, you might?
Hydrangeas are blue, delphinium are blue,
But why don’t we say that instead?
I guess “violets are blue”
Sounds better to you
To suit the phrase, “Roses are red.”

                                              http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BsBbtp4gW4

Dead Bees

Lately I've been thinking about the superficial mindset of the current culture, and myself.  It was only fitting that I should blog in response to Robert Hass' A Story About the Body.  The first things I noticed about this work were the most blatant: "[He]...had watched her for a week...and he thought he was in love with her."  The author talks about how this man seemed to love the way this Japanese artist moved her body, her artwork, and how she "looked at him directly when she made amused and considered answers to his questions."  When he learns that she has had a double mastectomy and is no longer anatomically "normal", "The radiance that he had carried around in his belly and chest cavity -- like music -- withered very quickly, and he made himself look at her when he said, 'I'm sorry, I don't think I could.'"  How very sad, I thought.  This woman obviously endured something horrific in needing this procedure to be done -- cancer, perhaps -- and this man is rejecting her for something she cannot change, and probably something that she had to do to keep from dying.  As a young woman, I was about to have a "hay day", ranting about superficial men, and that, "This is one of the highest forms of degradation!"  It certainly is, but before I could go further, I thought about my own culture.  By "culture", I don't mean the culture of the world and the mass media (which is obviously corrupt), but the culture that surrounds me at school.  I'm offended at the man in this story, but how many times do I not say anything when girls talk about the physical stature of young men in a degrading way?  It seems terrible for a man not to be with a woman because she has lost both of her breasts, but not so bad for young women to reject young men because they are too thin, too short, too pale.
      How important is physical attraction in romantic love?  This is a very complicated question, and not one that I am mature enough to answer in full.  I don't think appearance should be at the top of our priority list in evaluating a man or woman, and when I think about it, it seems quite superficial to hold any sort of physical malady against them at all.  What if you marry a goregeous person, and later they acquire permanent burns and scarring in some sort of accident?  Would you leave them because they have lost their allure?  Would it not be wiser to think about character when you're deciding whether to jump into love?  (I don't think you fall.)  Not only would this produce a bond that is stronger and much more "real", but I think when you get to know someone's character, you eventually see them as you percieve them to be.  I have known people who I didn't think were particularly striking when we met, but when I knew them better, I noticed "small" things about them that eventually made them seem very beautiful to me.
     Although the behavior of this man seems, and is, very wrong, I daresay this kind of mindset is perfectly normal for both genders, especially my age.  We seek the handsome, beautiful people who will make us feel "radiant" and get butterflies, and not necessarily the ones we will love, or the ones who will love us.  We seek rose petals, but when we dig deeper, we often find it wasn't what it appeared to be.    



                                               http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1trE3ms3AGo

Mr. Gradus et le Vent

         The grass looked lush and bright green in the late afternoon light.  It sparkled, swirled, and danced in the breeze that engulfed the French country side.  The sky was a deep blue -- that interesting hue just before it bursts into a million other colors with the sunset -- and speckled with stratus clouds.  He was slightly built, just above average height.  He walked with his head held high, his eyes fixed ahead of him, but not really looking at anything.  His stride was neither too long nor too short, as if he had planned each step perfectly in advance.  He strode past the wooden fence that had long needed to be repaired, and past the giant oak tree that rested just beside the dirt road that he walked every day after his shop closed.  He took out his pocket watch and glanced nervously at the time, as he had done just a few moments before.  He was not late for anything in particular, but he enjoyed arriving home at the same time each day.  After speaking with a frustrating customer about the pricing of a tea set, he closed the shop at almost six minutes after five.  On his way out, he saw that one of the china bowls had fallen behind the shelf and shattered.  It must have happened while he was in the office in the back of the shop - why hadn't Anton noticed and told him about it, or better yet, cleaned it up himself?  He sighed, and after he had finished sweeping it up, he was a full twenty minutes behind schedule.  Now the wind picked up and swirled around him, threatening to pull off his hat.  He placed his pale hand on top of his head and walked a little faster.  The wind was beginning to form tiny twisters in the sand, throwing dirt on his new brown suit – the latest turn of the century fashion.  He dusted the grains off of his coat, and reached for his pocket watch again.  A sudden chilly gust approached him unexpectedly, grabbed his hat, and tossed it to the ground. 
         “Oh, for…” he bent down quickly, but the hat had skipped just out of his reach.  He chased it all the way back to the oak tree where he thought he had cornered it, but it flew in another direction just as suddenly as before.  It spun on its side off of the road, and the wind carried it across a rolling field, teasing him to run after it again.  He stepped carefully over a broken fence post and jogged over to the hat in even strides.  Each time he came close, it skipped away, and once it flew just over his head, barely grazing his tousled brown hair.  He clenched his fists and watched helplessly.  Further and further away the wind blew it, and he had almost given up when it became lodged between two branches of a small tree.  He walked slowly over, quietly, as if he didn’t want the hat to hear him coming.  He reached out carefully, gripped the brim, and quickly put it back on his head.  A laugh escaped his lips.  It was a pleasant laugh, not loud or jarring.  He immediately pursed his lips and gazed back in the direction of the road, which he could not see from where he was standing, and stood for a moment with his hand firmly on top of his hat.  He glanced at his pocket watch, let out a sigh, and decided that today it would be more beneficial to walk cross-country to his home, rather than trying to go back to the road. 
             He set out again, this time a little unevenly as he tromped over fallen branches and small hills.  He approached a patch of orange poppies and stepped over them, all the time being careful to keep his hat, although the wind had died down.  The sky was beginning to turn a sort of grey-purple, and the leaves on the trees resembled tiny emeralds, although he didn’t notice it.  He sighed again at the sight of an especially large hill, and doubted his reasoning to walk across the field.  He fumbled once as he tried to climb it, and almost tripped again as he came to the top.  He straightened his coat, fixed his eyes ahead of him, and paused. 
          Enormous clouds had collected in front of the sun – its last light piercing through them in full, majestic rays.  The sky behind it was washed in deep blue, violet, pink, and golden-orange.  He stood still.  It was as close as he had ever felt to a sunset, so close it almost seemed as if he were a part of it.  “Shhh…” the wind said as it embraced him, causing the grass around him to dance at his feet.  He slowly took his hand off of his hat.  A flock of geese flew across the horizon, and disappeared.  His breathing slowed.  He could see his house in the distance.  He started down, and stopped again, gazing at the clouds.  Off his hat came again.  He reached, this time so vigorously that he fell on his stomach, and caught the brim between two fingers.  He laughed again.  He saw something bright out of the corner of his eye.  Another patch of poppies seemed as if they were dancing with the wind, seemed alive with laughter themselves.  He reached over and picked one for his wife.  He stood up, let out a different kind of sigh, and turned back to get a few more poppies.  He was holding a full bouquet as the wind picked up and urged him on. 
        He walked down the hill in jagged strides as it chased after him.  He quickened his pace, jogged a little, and eventually ran, dropping a few flowers on the ground.  The whole world swirled around him in a blur of green, pink, orange, and blue until he reached his doorstep.  He touched the doorknob, and looked behind him.  The wind was at its peak, the part of the sky he could see had almost gone dark, he noticed.  He smiled, opened the door determinedly, and caught a glimpse of the dancing trees just before it slammed shut.                          

                                   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhQg2voYl9k&feature=related
The scenario for this story was based entirely on this piece.  I envision this scene with the music in the background.  The paragraph breaks occur when there is a slight break in the music, and the very last notes resemble a slamming door.

How I Wonder Who You Are

For this assignment, I immediately chose to write about Twinkle, although I wasn't sure why at first.  I mentioned earlier that some of her idiosyncrasies remind me of myself, so I have a sort of common ground with this character, I suppose.  It also occured to me that I feel sorry for Twinkle in some ways.  If she were a real person, I would say that she is much deeper than she protrays herself to be.

She is twenty-seven years old, of Indian descent (her parents live in Calcutta), a former English major now pursuing a masters in studying an Irish poet, and although the story says Sanjeev thinks she is pretty, the way the characters interact with her make me think she's very beautiful.     

One of the first things I noticed about her was her childlike ways.  The author makes this rather obvious, describing her young face, which "had not grown out of its girlhood, the eyes untroubled, the pleasing features unfirmed..." and sponteneous antics, "She dragged him to a tiny bookshop on St. Mark's Place, where she browsed for nearly an hour, and when they left she insisted that they dance a tango on the sidewalk in front of strangers."  But I also noticed the childishness in the way that she spoke.
"It's pretty."
"But I do nothing all day except sit at my desk."
"Each day is like a treasure hunt.  I'm serious."
"I will, I promise."
"No, silly Sanj."
"I hate you."
"Who cares?"

She wears bright colors, "a yellow chenile sweater", "...her salwaar kameez, which was the shade of persimmon...", and demonstrates creativity in accessorizing, "the little string of white rose petals she had coiled cleverly around her head..." which leads the reader to believe even more that she has a bright and whimsical personality. 

But is Twinkle really childish?  I noticed some other things in the story that made me ponder. 
While she and Sanjeev are arguing, she often ignores things he says that could be taken as offensive "digs."
"'Clearly the scheme has succeeded in your case.'  She disregarded him, shaking the little plastic dome so that the snow swirled over the manger."
She often appears "placid" or "strangely at peace" when it would be understandable for her to be upset.
"'Now, look.  I will tolerate, for a while, your little biblical menagerie in the living room, but...I refuse to have this...displayed in our home.'  Twinkle stared at him, placidly exhaling, the smoke emerging in two thin blue streams from her nostrils.  She rolled up the poster slowly..."
It would have been very childlike to fight back with harsh words and whining, but instead she either doesn't say anything, or informs Sanjeev calmly about what she's going to do.
However, the story also mentions the two bickering about unimportant things, like high heels.  At this point Twinkle protests, but in a non-threatening, non-offensive way.

Instead of displaying immaturity, could it be that Twinkle's spontenaity, her flitting this way and that (like leaving the house for three hours and buying scented candels instead of cleaning), and giggly nature is some sort of subconcious mask?  I mentioned before that I thought Twinkle was searching for more than trinkets, and I still think so.

She appears to be a very affectionate toward Sanjeev.  The story mentions that she squeezes Sanjeev's elbow or knee often.  I think she wants to be loved.  She was reading Sonnets in the bathtub when Sanjeev approached her to tell her about his decision regarding the statue (when she later cried into his shirt).  While this may be considered a "normal" thing for someone studying literature to do, I think that that particular text is relevant to the story, and her character.
Also in this scene, Twinkle "lost it".  She threw on her bathrobe and acted as though she was going to leave, with a face mask and all, and seemed uncontrollably emotional for a moment.  She even told Sanjeev she hated him.  I'm not sure how to interpret this, but her quick recovery still makes me think she isn't so childish as she seems. 

A quote that stood out to me was this: "Why do you care so much about what other people think?"  I don't think Twinkle cares much about what other people think, which is interesting, because everyone seems to be attracted to her.  I think she would like to be herself, but I'm not sure she knows exactly who that is.          

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMhYomyVYGs