Beautiful in its time

"Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer's day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum." ~Harper Lee from To Kill a Mockingbird


In summertime the heat that sweeps me up in a warm hug the instant I cross the threshold pulling the door tightly closed behind me to trap the costly coolness inside, reminds me of that lovely simile in the passage above: "like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum." Here the heat softens as it warms, moist air dampening hair and clothing and skin. It is my first summer in Maryland, and although I can understand and share with many in giving "oppressive" as the descriptor of choice for warmth that radiates off of asphalt and car roofs, sometimes it comes across to me as an over-exuberant child who you can't help but smile at even as you wish his parents had not allowed him that second scoop of ice cream.

My willingness to welcome and indulge summer is dependent on the sure escape I have in my air-conditioned apartment. When that was threatened this last weekend, I was feeling a great deal less annoyingly appreciative of 95 degree days. The storm (which I have recently learned was officially called a Derecho: "a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms." Thank you NPR) that hit a huge swath of the US, putting almost 4 million people out of power, also hit hard here. At its height I looked outside and the trees behind the parking lot at my apartment reminded me of CS Lewis's description of Lucy's experience with trees that Aslan was in the process of awakening in Prince Caspian. They looked like they were dancing. Unfortunately outside of a fantasy world it can cause problems when trees attempt to be mobile. Thankfully neither my roommate nor I had any car or apartment damage due to falling trees or branches, but we were out of power along with hundred of thousands of other people in the Maryland/DC area.

 Friday night Hannah and I decided if we couldn't watch the Olympic trials we were still going to have a good night so we lit candles, got out our flashlights, played scrabble, and tried to ignore the rising temperature in the apartment. Saturday was unpleasant as we searched for ice to save freezer and fridge food, witnessed a run on gas stations, and learned the possibility that we would be out of power for up to a week. However, in the wee hours of the morning on Sunday, I rolled over in bed and heard the sound of our air conditioning kicking on and such a lovely sound it was. Many people are still without power and large numbers of traffic lights along busy roads are still not functioning, reminding me how tenuous and illusory our control over our environment really is.

This lesson was further hammered home when I learned that my family's vacation cabin in the foothills of Laramie Peak near Wheatland, Wyoming had burned down in one of this weekend's forest fires that are still devastating the west. Thankfully everyone had been evacuated in time so there were no casualties apart from the buildings, but I've still been mourning the loss of one of my favorite places. An earlier blog post of mine had incorporated photos taken at and around this cabin with a poem by Robert Penn Warren. I'm grateful to have the memories and that I have, and am looking forward to seeing what Phoenix will rise.

Just prior to this incident I had been vacationing with my family in the cool weather of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where a warm summer day settles in the upper 70s. Apart from biting flies it was a delightful vacation and I enjoyed hiking and kayaking in the fresh, almost untainted forests and water. I'll include some pictures below. It was a lovely location, but everywhere people who make that their home smiled at tourists and warned us of the danger of winters and the extreme conditions they faced living so remotely year-round.

Given the instability of the last few days I was complaining to Jake that sometimes life felt like building a tower out of blocks for a toddler to knock down. To which he replied, "so build your tower closer to the ground." And there is certainly some wisdom in his 2nd law of thermodynamics inspired answer. Having a diverse spread of interests and investments--emotional and financial--can soften some of life's blows. But even then there is no guarantee or insurance in such precautions, since toddlers also like to kick apart as well as knock down. At times like this Ecclesiastes provides the solace of shared frustration: "I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

I would like to end like I have before with a book review. While on my vacation I finished reading Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson translated by Anne Born. It is a poignant Bildungsroman story told as a series of flashbacks by a man in his sixties who by reliving a difficult summer in his youth seems to be completing his coming of age. The prose is as beautiful as the setting: remote eastern Norway; the characters complex and complete (even down to the dog).  There are echos to me of Thoreau, but the romanticism is balanced with a realistic edge--not bitter but harsh--that sees the limits of the human life, its depth and span. While there are glimmers of redemption throughout the book, the ending left me sad and pensive wondering if there are some gulfs in life that we never get the chance to bridge. Just as Lee's opening to To Kill a Mockingbird comes to mind every summer, so the beginning to this book I think will come to mind when I contemplate the passage of time:

"Time is important to me now, I tell myself. Not that it should pass quickly or slowly, but be only time, be something I live inside and fill with physical things and activities that I can divide it up by, so that it grows distinct to me and does not vanish when I am not looking." ~Per Petterson Out Stealing Horses

"Memory pulls us forward"

Today, feeling warm and sticky, and wishing I hadn't worn sweater tights I walked the long pilgrimage up to O'Boyle hall to fulfill my last writing center obligation of this school year. I had turned in all my final term papers yesterday and had felt giddy and lighthearted upon their completion.

Handing in final papers always feels like it should be a momentous moment; crowds should line the hallways and stairwells as I walk solemnly towards my professors' offices, twenty pages worth of intellectual toil, frustration, spatters of brilliance and blood grasped lightly so as not to wrinkle the title page with a sweaty palm. Come, now, admire this clever title, the artful intro, the dancing prose, the thought-provoking conclusion, and the meticulously assembled bibliography. At the very least a professor should be waiting with an admiring nod that acknowledges my timely completion of the task; perhaps a pat on the back; a quick thoughtful glance at the thesis; an exclamation of eagerness. Such are the fantasies of an English grad student.

Reality is hearing my sleep-deprived stumbling gait echo in an empty hall while I find what appears to be my professor's office locked and I spend a moment or two debating whether wedging it under the door or putting it in a clear plastic box attached to the door is the more likely successful method for delivering the paper into the professor's hand--a paper whose merits are questionable given its hasty and anxiety driven composition. Such are the end-of-semester glorious triumphs of an English grad student.

Although I felt that odd mixture of relief and letdown once the papers were in, it didn't really strike me that I was finished with my first year of grad school until today as I collected the bits of me that had become scattered around the writing center.  Thanks largely to Heather's efforts, the writing center had been appropriately seasonally decorated all semester. As one final gesture I gave our giant picture of Nathaniel Hawthorne a pair paper cut-out sunglasses, and scattered paper cut-out flowers in Virginia Woolf's hair. Earlier this week Heather had put up word balloons for them: Nathaniel: "Virginia, I've rented a house with seven gables for the summer. Would you like to join me?" Virginia: "Thanks, Nate, but I'm headed to the lighthouse for my break." Such little self-indulgent smiles along tea and cookies and paper cut-outs have successfully made the writing center more pleasant in my opinion--even if only for the consultants.

After I finished my shift and made my way back towards the metro--again wishing away the scratchy tights--I was struck by how silently the time has slipped by; the year passed neither quickly nor slowly, but stealthily.

I met two fellow grad students in Silver Spring for a book discussion after my shift was over. It was as Susanna remarked, "the first official act of summer." The three of us had read Housekeeping by Marilynn Robinson; Susanna for a class, Heather upon Susanna's suggestion, and me because the book had been a gift from my mother. Although we all found the plot troubling to various degrees and spent time sifting through the implications of some of its darker themes, we each agreed that the writing itself was exquisite--the narrative voice so concrete in its attention to the details of the world of the narrator, so deft in maneuvering from reflection to action, so subtle in developing consciousnesses, and so timely in revealing plot elements that we each found ourselves ending our discussion in admiration. I highly recommend this book, although, be warned it is not a pick-me-up.

As I was thinking about it after our discussion I found it a fitting book to be reading at the end of a semester. The book returns to and dwells upon transience; something that seems to confront me often in my paper cut-out life. Torn now between the sense of place I remember as home and the sense of place I'm creating as home, I'm left feeling "turned out of house" as Ruthie remarks in Housekeeping. 

I'm going to end this post with a passage from the book I found especially beautiful and poignant:

"Imagine a Carthage sown with salt, and all the sowers gone, and the seeds lain however long in the earth, till there rose finally in vegetable profusion leaves and trees of rime and brine. What flowering would there be in such a garden? Life would force each salt calyx to open in prisms, and to fruit heavily with bright globes of water--peaches and grapes are little more than that, and where the world was salt there would be greater need of slaking. For need can blossom into all the compensations it requires. To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know anything so utterly as when we lack it? And here again is a foreshadowing--the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one's hair is all but to feel it. So whatever we may lose, very craving gives it back to us again. Though we dream and hardly know it, longing, like an angel, fosters us, smooths our hair, and brings us wild strawberries." (Robinson, Housekeeping, Chapter 8, p. 152, 153)

A few stray thoughts upon Spring's sudden appearing

Unbelievably, April is almost upon us. I find myself with mixed feelings at this time of the year. On the one hand just stepping out of my apartment most mornings is delightful; the air is warm the trees are blooming, bulbs are sprouting and I feel I could skip all the way to the bus stop. It is the time to wear dresses and skirts again and to begin eyeing sandals and flip-flops collecting dust at the back of the closet.  However, this is also the time of year that paper deadlines begin to loom and the lethargic winter attitude begins to catch up with you as the mound of work between you and summer vacation seems at times insurmountable.

How should this dilemma be handled? Denial and procrastination of course! Flowers only bloom once every spring, after all, and those papers will always be there waiting for you to write them ;-)

I'm currently working on mixing responsibility and recreation into a magical elixir that once perfected I will copyright and mass produce, making a fortune that will significantly diminish my own need to be responsible. To that end I've taken several opportunities to smell the spring flowering flora: Jake and I have visited Brookside Gardens in Silver Spring and the Cherry Blossom (pre) festival in DC. Additionally Heather and I spent a lovely afternoon at the US Botanic Gardens enjoying their impressive Orchid collection. Here's a smattering of pictures:

A beautiful day to be downtown enjoying the cherry blossoms!

At Brookside gardens the vibrancy of the early spring flowers was noteworthy.

This past weekend when the weather was not as cooperative, Jake and I made a trip to the air and space Smithsonian museum where I learned how Jet engines work and how planes land on air craft carriers among other mentally stimulating tidbits.

Eventually I will have to drag my eyes away from the windows and my mind out of the flower beds to finish off my second semester of grad school. I'm doing some work with a couple John Donne poems for my Linguistics and Literary Criticism classes. I'm having a more difficult time picking a project for my Restoration Drama class, but I'm making that a priority for this week.

I'd like to end this post with a book recommendation. The Year of the Hare, by Arto Paasilinna is a profound yet lighthearted novel about a journalist living a fast paced, 20th century life who hits a hare with his car, is overcome with concern for the hare, patches him up and takes off on a series of adventures across Finland while trying to figure out what is really important in life. I picked this book up over Christmas vacation upon a recommendation from Jennifer at Literary Life Bookstore in Grand Rapids, and found it to be extremely enjoyable. Although I read it in winter, I think it has a spring-like air and has come to mind several times since the weather turned. So if you're looking for a delightful read that is a bit off the beaten path, I highly recommend this book.

Visitors and Poets

This morning, blinking sleep from my eyes at 6:30am, I said goodbye to my mom and sister who had come for a long weekend visit. Now all that remains of their time here is an air mattress waiting to be deflated and a handful of extra groceries (including four jars of peanut butter). I enjoyed having them to visit; it gave me an excuse to do some sightseeing. I find that despite my proximity to our nation's capitol, I don't take advantage of its many cultural and intellectual offerings as often as I should. With them I visited the Holocaust museum--a sobering, but excellent exhibit-- and revisited the Natural History museum.

Here's some pictures from their visit:

Mom and Loren got a chance to meet Jake

Riding the Metro

Mom likes it that there is a Calder statue in DC like there is in Grand Rapids, although she says this one looks like Shelob

Duemler girls together

Now the apartment is once again quiet; after three weekends of visitors in a row, the silence is almost unsettling. Realizing I hadn't updated my blog in a while, I spent some time looking over my journal entries since my last post and over some of my reflections on the beginning of a new year. As we are making our way into March, I'm realizing how much has happened in a year. A year ago at this time I was hearing back from grad schools and trying to decide where to spend the next few years of my life. A lot has happened since then and I've gone through some large changes; most of which I'm very happy with. I can say with confidence that God has been very very good to me.

One extra curricular book I've read this year is  Red Bird, a collection of poems by Mary Oliver. I found it very delightful, but also haunting. Oliver deftly interweaves an awareness of death and the joy of life  through the lens of the natural world which remains for me a powerful system of images. It reminds me of the walks I would take when younger through the woods behind my parents' house: pleased as I was just to be alive for a moment in that rapidly eroding and suburbanly tamed, small, sliver of nature, it was here that the peaceful melancholy that marks my memories of childhood most clearly overtook me. It was a place for both solitude and communion with God and his world. Through Oliver's poems I recapture as an adult most completely that bit of who I am:

Red Bird Explains Himself

"Yes, I was the brilliance floating over the snow
and I was the song in the sumer leaves, but this was
only the first trick
I had hold of among my other mythologies,
for I also knew obedience: bringing sticks to the nest,
food to the young, kisses to my bride

But don't stop there, stay with me: listen

If I was the song that entered your heart
then I was the music of your heart, that you wanted and needed,
and thus wilderness bloomed there, with all its
followers: gardeners, lovers, people who weep
for the death of rivers.

And this was my true task, to be the
music of the body. Do you understand? for truly the body needs
a song, a spirit, a soul. And no less, to make this work,
the soul has need of a body,
and I am both of the earth and I am of the inexplicable
beauty of heaven
where I fly so easily, so welcome, yes,
and this is why I have been sent, to teach this to your heart."

Stray Thoughts

I should be writing a response for my class tomorrow right now. I should be interacting with readings on how the University has forced students to appropriate an unfamiliar language and discussed their failure to do so in quantitatively diagnostic terms. Instead I'm listening to the Eagles and Ingrid Michaelson and thinking about how a lady's umbrella yesterday flicked up neatly and gracefully, like an extension of her arm as she stepped off the bus and into the torrential downpour.

Creative Break

Pictures!

Marie and I at dinner Friday night.

The Studio Theatre

Marie's favorite place in DC so far: Frozen Yo, where you can find almost any possible flavor of frozen soft serve yogurt.

Fall is coming! (or it might already be here)

The building in which I work, O'Boyle Hall

Marist Hall, the building that is supposed to be my home base since it houses the English department and graduate student offices, but alas, it is currently undergoing structural repairs due to earthquake damage.

Not a bad looking campus :-)