lies

On jazz.

LLM

***

There is no better accompaniment for one’s despair than the lie of jazz. The beat so peppy and hopeful. The voices so enticing and smooth. The instruments so loud and playful. It overwhelms the listener with slow, sensual beats. The rhythm moves, emotes, evokes, and challenges. It is praise to the gift of feeling—the gift of being with another.

But the words. The words of jazz do not lie. Even the songs of love found are tinged with the knowledge of love lost. The lament simmers under the music. It is disguised by joy. It is hidden until it breaks forth unexpectedly—painfully. One is carried by the tune and is awakened slowly to the meaning of the words.

Perhaps I would have lived blissfully unaware of this quality of jazz had my uncle not committed suicide. I would have recognized the unrequited love—who can’t identify with that?—but I would not have noticed the deeper lament, the grief of jazz.

My first outing after I returned home from my uncle’s funeral was to a local wine bar to listen to a jazz group that plays there every week. I’ve been attending these jazz nights off and on for nearly two years. In the midst of grief I wanted the overwhelming noise to wash over me and cleanse me of grief. I wanted to be reminded of play and joy and goodness.

But what I found was lament. The songs of praise had become songs of cursing. What had been musical frolicking had become barely controlled chaos. I no longer heard the joyful shouting but rather the cries from the depths.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells his followers, “Those who have ears should hear.” In graduate school, one of my professors was fond of asking, “What do you hear when you hear?” Perhaps we hear what we need to hear. I needed lament, and so I heard it. Over the past few months I have gone to jazz night alone, with pen and paper, to write about the experience of living with grief. These nights have reminded me that there is not only lament in the midst of hope but also hope in the midst of lament. Sometimes lies are nothing but truth.

The Nutcracker

Hey, readers.

Yes, we do have a blog. Unfortunately, it's been insanely hard to write lately with my impending thesis defense.

Hopefully we'll be able to pick back up now that my defense is on the horizon.

***

Our theme for this week: Joy



Christmas has always been a big deal in my immediate family. When we were younger my father had the most amazing ability to pick the coldest, snowiest day of December to go for the Christmas tree, which was always a family affair. We'd ride around together looking for the tallest, thickest fraiser fir we could find and then would hall the behemoth back home to put it up in the living room and decorate it. Mom always hung popcorn strings on her Christmas tree as a kid, so we would start stringing in November. Pa loves lights and would do justice to Chevy Chase in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Thankfully, I've always been afraid of heights and a klutz, so I've been excused from the treacherous rooftop decorating duties.

Christmas always brought cookies and fudge. Hot chocolate and brandy. Christmas hats and off-key sing-a-longs in the kitchen. Christmas day brought a mountain of presents in the living room in the morning and all of my Prosen family cousins in the afternoon. Grandma in her Christmas sweaters. Good things to eat and Trivial Pursuit or Taboo after dinner. When I was much, much younger, Christmas brought a new dress from my Grandmother.

My favorite Christmas tradition, however, began on a whim. My aunt (a physical therapist/athletic trainer, I think) was working with the Milwaukee Ballet Company and they offered her two tickets to annual performance of The Nutcracker. For some reason unknown to me, Kathy gave them to my mom. Because ballet was a girl thing, Mom took me to it rather than my brothers.

We went for many years after that first one. I loved it. I loved getting dressed up and the ballerinas. I loved the music (and still do.) I loved the fantastical story line and the belief that my toys really could come to life. I loved the ginger ale and the cookies we shared at intermission. I loved the the brief pause my mother and I both treasured from constant talk of football and hunting and whatever other manly conversations were happening at home.

What I loved most, though, was the time with my mom. I miss it tremendously now that we've stopped going. What I want for Christmas this year is the chance to get dressed up together in our fancy clothes and spend an evening watching the dance progress and sharing a ginger ale in the lobby.

***

The Nutcracker

When I was small, my mother took me to watch the Milwaukee ballet company dance The Nutcracker. I had a new Christmas dress, an early gift from my grandmother. It was taffeta and rustled when I walked and when I shifted in my seat. Mom wore a second-hand velvet dress and my great-grandmother's fur coat. I thought she was the prettiest lady there. During the intermission she bought me a ginger ale and we shared an ice cream sundae. She told me she was proud of how I was behaving myself--I barely fidgeted at all. Then she gave me the cherry on the top of the sundae. When she asked me what I liked best about the show I told her it was dresses and the way the ballerinas twirled. We kept going for years, and she always asked the same question over the same sundae. Some years I liked the Nutcracker Prince best. Other years it dressing up, or people watching at intermission, the Christmas decorations in the lobby or the music. Now, at twenty-six I still love all of those things. But this year, when she asks me, I'll tell her it's her second-hand velvet, inherited fur, and the cherry she still saves for me.

thin space

This one, oddly enough, came much easier.

LLM

***

The Irish talk of thin spaces—space where the sacred breaks into everyday life, space where the divine is felt. Thinness is not reserved to physical space exactly. Yes, I’ve been in churches where the divine drips from altar and ambo. But I’ve also met thin people whose gentleness and peace reflects the stillness of God. And I’ve experienced thin moments where I was attuned to the heartbeat of Christ—the most significant movement of the universe, as one of my college professors would say it.

This has been a summer of thinness. Grief is one of the thinnest spaces a person can experience; God is so abundantly present. At the same time, God is utterly absent. Somehow this absence is thin too. The emptiness is a chasm waiting to be filled, an opportunity for wholeness and grace.

It took three months for me to recognize how thin this summer has been. It was the day after my cousin Edyn’s baptism. My aunt and uncle’s house was full of people and the chaos that accompanies out-of-town guests. My other cousins—one six years old and the other four—were begging to play video games. My aunt was preparing the casserole that would be dinner. My grandparents were watching television. My mother and uncle were discussing cameras. A few other people were milling about. It was not a time for stillness. I stood in the kitchen with my aunt, watching her work, while I held Edyn for a rare moment when she wasn’t fussing as a result of being held by someone she didn’t know. Her eyes drooped and, amid the noise, she fell asleep. “I’m going to take her upstairs,” I told my aunt.

“Okay. Just put her in the crib. She may fuss, but she’ll put herself back to sleep.”

“No,” I said. “I just want to hold her.”

Edyn was a month old at this point. Tiny. Perfect. Her beautiful round head. Her sweet little newborn lips. Her delicate eyelashes. For two hours, I drank her in. I gently held her little hand. I rocked her and wished good things into her life.

And I knew that it was thin space—that we were not alone.

After my uncle died in May, I started building a stone wall, a protection against hurt. I have been living a season of stoniness. The prophet Ezekiel says that God will take the people’s stony hearts and give them hearts of flesh. I traded in my heart of flesh for one of stone. Stone hearts don’t hurt so much. They don’t beat either. What I’ve learned is that stone is not impervious to thinness. Somehow God sneaks in—while you’re gently rocking a baby or otherwise preoccupied—and reminds you that stones crumble.

beginning

Anne Lamott writes about shitty first drafts. Since I read about these drafts, I've found great comfort in them.

It's been a while since I've put down words. These ones have wrestled their way out, but for about a week I've not been able to make much of them. When I think about it, my brain freezes. Home is too close and yet too far. There's so much to say that I can't say much of anything. It's an interesting phenomenon--one I've noticed in my writing about my mom and dad as well: I could write volumes about my dad despite the fact that he's been dead for over twenty years, but writing about my mother is nearly impossible.

I feel like my musings here are beginnings; there's a world behind these words, but that world isn't quite visible. Yes, as the writer it's my responsibility to let you in to that world. But, I'm tired of sitting on these words so there you have it.

Soon...vulnerability.

LLM

***

“Home is a feeling I buried in you.” (“Breathe” by Greenwheel)

The places I call home have buried themselves in me. I, in turn, have buried myself in them. Home, like God, is love, support, challenge, hope, and comfort. Home is noun; it is people, places, and things.

Two years ago I moved to Minnesota. I had been here for two years before that while I got my master’s degree, but the second moving was real. It was a commitment to a place for longer than two or four years; it was indefinite. As a result, it was terrifying.

I do not generally think of myself as a person who has left home. Instead, I carry the homes I’ve had before with me. The somewhat simple act of creating a space for myself has forced me to weave together these disparate places; it has made me acknowledge their hold on me. My apartment is Kansas City, Atchison, and Saint John’s all rolled in to one. It is reminder of my mother, coffee bar, place of prayer, shrine to learning. The space I have created is a haven for stillness and peace. It is a place of blessedness.

Ain't Misbehavin'

Before the beginning of this week's post, a brief aside.

Perhaps one of my favorite aspects about this blog is the way the themes bring to the surface topics about which I've always wanted to write, but have never been able to find the words. On a personal level, it has helped me sift through the debris of everyday life and focus on those things which are important to me. Most notably, my family and the impact they've had on me. It is very difficult to be removed from their daily lives. The writing I have posted here has helped me realize that.

It has also served as a connection to my scattered, extended family. When I post an updated link about one of the family posts I've done, I can count on comments from cousins and siblings from New York to Denver to Milwaukee. This connection--however tenuous and dependent on virtual communication--is one I cherish.

***

Our theme for this week: Jazz.

Grandmother Prosen is a force to be reckoned with. When my mother, her daughter-in-law, is feeling sassy she refers to Gram as Rose Kennedy--the matriarch of the family. It makes my grandmother crazy, but I think is an apt description. She keeps the family together: she stuffs the turkeys at Thanksgiving; makes us all laugh over Christmas; catches and fries all of the fish for the Good Friday fish fry at my auntie's; cares for her great-grandbabies. Most of the family still takes part of their summer vacation with her at the family cabin.

The stories from my grandmother's childhood are complicated, full of relatives and sort-of relatives. She was raised by extended family after her mother died in childbirth, so I had myriad great-uncles, great-aunts, and an truly daunting network of second-cousins-twice removed populating family stories and family gatherings when I was growing up. I loved to listen to her tell stories about my Aunt Dorothy, who made beer in her basement during Prohibition or how she met my grandfather though her family ties to the railroad.

There are two aspects of my grandmother's early life that stick with me most. The first is her love of prize-fighting. It was a strange revelation, one that Dad told me when I was still in high school. Apparently Gram's adopted mother ("Ma") loved boxing, and would take grandma to neighborhood fights when she was a little girl. I love the image of my grandmother in a dressed up and sitting ringside at a fight.

The second is Gram's love for jazz. I've written here before about Grandma Baker's love of bluegrass, country, and hymns. Grandma Prosen loved jazz equally, and was responsible for my first exposure to it. She tended more toward the vocal/lounge variety of music, perhaps not what most people would consider jazz. But through her, I was introduced to Billie Holliday, Etta James, Dinah Washington, and Ella Fitgerald. I first fell in love with the the song "Ain't Misbehavin'" on a rainy afternoon in high school. Pirating music was easier then, and I had made a CD for the two of us to listen to in the kitchen. She was drinking coffee and keeping and eye on the meatloaf. I was probably reading or doing homework. I still remember Ella's smooth voice giving me pause, drawing my attention from parsing sentences or Fitzgerald's short stories.

Gram didn't say much, aside from small comments of approval when one of her favorite songs came on. She said nothing during this song. When the CD restarted, she pulled the meatloaf from the oven, wiped her hands on a towel, and hugged me goodbye.

"Thanks for the walk down memory lane, kid."

To this day "Ain't Misbehavin'" is a song I have to hear from beginning to end. It makes the breath catch in my throat and makes my chest tighten. I can't hear it without remembering that rainy afternoon and the smell of my grandmother's cooking.

***

Ain't Misbehavin'

When I hear Ella Fiztgerald's smooth voice

I do not think of falling into love;

slow-dancing in the arms of some well-dressed man;

or even the bar, where, while in graduate school

I would drink Scotch and listen to a jazz on Mondays.

I think instead of my grandmother

in the kitchen in the house where I grew up.

Casually making a meatloaf and boiled potatoes,

helping me understand the meaning of a gerund,

or translate my school edition of Virgil.

I remember her little sigh of pleasure

when I had finished with my questions,

when it was time to put dinner in the oven

and sit down to a cup of coffee and songs she loved.

when it's personal

I am a memoirist. Or I like to think I am. I write about myself, about what’s personal, about my thoughts.

But I do not write everything about those things. (Nor do I think I really should.) There are certain parts of me that are under lock and key, that I don’t allow into my public writing.

I am a memoirist who doesn’t really want to reveal too much about herself.

But the poem I wrote for this theme is not that way. It cuts deep into where I’ve been this year. And sharing it with you is, well, hard. I’ve sat on this poem for about a week, debating about posting it or writing something else. And I’ve settled on posting it not because it’s a stellar poem (far from it) but because it makes me uncomfortable.

Writing is not about safety. Writing is about sharing a world with the reader, and that sharing leads to vulnerability, as is the case in any relationship.

So, dear reader, here—my heart.

LLM

***


Moments of Yes

The gentle pressure
of your hand
on the small of my back—
the steadiness
of your blue-grey eyes—
as you pull me toward you
to dance
to embrace
to move into a moment
we both know won’t last

The utter desperation
of the sun as it sets
leaving blues and oranges
gasping for breath
before they’re turned
into dark
and I step out of your
embrace
and into
no

Crash

"You're not crying are you?"

There's an edge to my voice that isn't coming from the pain of road rash or my bruised and potentially broken ribs.

"No. No. I'm just pushing up my glasses!"

"Good." I pause to spit some blood and another tooth chip into the waist high grass and then resume my ponderous, limping walk. "I hate criers."

***

"Kel, hon, it's Dad."

"Hey, Pa. What's up?"

"Mom and I wanted to see if you needed us to come up and take care of you for a few days. Mom broke her ribs a few years ago and knows how hard it is to take care of yourself."

"Really, Daddy. I'm fine. I promise."

"All right. How'd the CT scan go?"

"Laying down hurt so badly I wanted to cry."

"Did you?"

"No."

"That's my girl."

***

"After this is all over, you and I can't be friends anymore."

"What? Why?"

"Last night when you came in to check on me, not only was I in my PJs, not wearing a bra, but I was asleep with my mouth open."

"And you looked like an angel."

"Oh, go to hell."

***

If our family had a coat of arms, our motto would be "We don't raise sissies." My mom in particular is one tough lady. When she fractured her ribs she didn't cry, she cussed a blue streak. A few years later, on bed rest after minor surgery she kept getting up and driving herself to the grocery store and trying to wash the windows. Dad joked that we were going to have to put her in a strait-jacket just to keep her from hurting herself. Nothing, it seemed, could make Mom drop her guard for long enough to ask for help.

This is a trait she's passed on to me. Despite being, on occasion, a very girly-girl I am decidedly not a sissy. I clean out my own mousetraps, wrestle with my brothers, drink and cuss like a seventy-five year old sailor on shore leave. I project, I've been told, an image of invulnerability augmented by the fact that I don't cry when I've hurt myself; talk about my feelings; or let other people do things for me.

During the past five days I've had to give up the illusion of invulnerability. On Saturday I crashed my bike on the Wobegone trail. I ended up in the E.R. with a chipped tooth, myriad cuts in my mouth, road rash and bruising on my arms and legs, and bruised and potentially fractured ribs. My tooth has been repaired and the various bruises and scrapes are healing nicely, but my ribs remain problematic. Deep breaths hurt. So does sitting up, laughing, getting into/out of a chair, dressing myself, shampooing my hair, or a number of other daily tasks. Laying down to sleep is out of the question. Sneezing is excruciating.

As I am unable to do a number of tasks on my own, I've been reduced to asking for help for everything from zipping up my dresses in the morning to taking out the trash. I've been utterly self-sufficient since I was eighteen, so this is slightly problematic. In the past week, I've had to learn to both ask for and rely on others. I've had to look at my construction of myself as invulnerable.

I've found it lacking.

***

What The Palm-Reader Told Me

At twenty-one I had my palm read by a Romani gypsy. She did not have scarves or bangles, but eyes so dark they terrified me. After one look at me she asked: "You are also a gypsy?" It was a secret my grandmother had told me years before, after too much dancing to and too much wine at a wedding. I never told a soul. "It's in the way you hold yourself." She said, and smiled and resumed with my palm. I would be, she told me, prosperous in business and fiercely independent, but unlucky in love, among other things. For years, I forgot everything that she said, recalling it only after a bad break-up or a good job interview. I thought of it again this morning when you caught my eye in the mirror and laughed. I was struggling to zip up my dress and my contortions caught your attention. You came up behind me, ran the zipper smoothly to the top and kissed my shoulder. When you left the bathroom to butter my toast and make my coffee I couldn't help but wonder if she had gotten something wrong.

Quilt

A little something about what I've learned from my grandmother, a quilter.

Love,

LLM

***

Quilter’s hands—a thimble on one finger, the soft tug of thread and needle through fabric, a careful hold on the quilter’s hoop, and, when the last stitch is made, a gentle smoothing over of the finished product as she inspects her work. I’ve not seen my grandmother quilt for nearly ten years, and yet these images of her are among the most powerful ones I have. They evoke stillness and peace, comfort and rest.

The nature of quilting is such that one takes fragments and makes them into a whole. The pieces, nothing in themselves, become something more, become art. In the knitting together, everything becomes important; no scrap is without purpose.

As a young girl I did not learn how to quilt from my grandmother, but I watched her piece together many quilts. I watched her choose the fabrics, the colors, the pattern and sew them into something new and glorious.

As a woman I am learning the art of metaphorical quilting. We Murphys are in the process of grieving. The thimble fell off, and the needle pierced the skin. Deep. Shaun’s death has left each of us feeling fragmented, torn. We are quilting this loss to our other ones. The Irish Chain is suddenly showing up in what was the Dresden Plate. The colors don’t match and the patterns make no sense. But we keep stitching anyway.

Every night I fall asleep under one of the quilts my grandma gave to me. It reminds me that the pieces do come together, that what is torn will be mended, that healing comes. That there is always another thing to be stitched.

How it Begins

Our theme for this week: Home

Weeds with shallow roots are the easiest to pull.

I learned this at a very young age, pulling weeds in my mother’s garden. She taught me how to dig around the long, deep-searching central spike of a dandelion plant, and that pulling up the small shallow roots of plants that haven’t grown very far down into the soil was easier than letting them go for another hour, another day, another week. She also taught me that sometimes the frailest looking plants are the most resilient. Field bindweed was her favorite example. A delicate, clinging vine with white blossoms that looked like morning glories, it was harder than hell to pull out of the garden. It was deceptively frail looking, but had a network of shallow, webbed roots underground that drove us crazy.

Whenever someone commented on how quickly my mother’s children were growing she would reply “they’re growing like weeds.” It was her way of acknowledging the rapidity of our change. And, I think, her hope that like the dandelions we were forever tearing up, we were putting down good strong roots.

These days, I’m feeling a little like the small weeds that keep getting turned over and pulled out before they have a chance to take hold. I’m packing my house to move for the 15^th time in seven years. I still have boxes I haven’t unpacked from my move last summer. After all, it seemed stupid to settle into something I knew was only temporary. Despite my Bohemian gypsy roots, I’m tired of packing up my possessions at the end of every nine months and shipping off to a different apartment.

Two weekends ago I went to Milwaukee. Ostensibly, I was there to retrieve a friend and bring her back to Minnesota for a wedding. I was happy to be of help to her, but I was even happier to be able to return to Wisconsin and see my family. I don't make it back to their house very often, and it was good to see them there. We spent a lot of time on their deck, watching the birds on the feeders, drinking beer, water, or coffee, and talking.

I went home because I desperately needed to see my parents, to feel some semblance of normality again. I went to be reminded of the fact that I am not rootless. If nothing else, I come from a definite place, and have definite people.

I am tired of living out of boxes, of packing and unpacking my entire life every twelve months. I'm rethinking my decision to re-apply to Ph.D. programs this year and am suddenly cognizant of a number of other things I want to do with my life. Many of these things (buying a house, becoming an Oblate, spending more time in Wisconsin, becoming a major gifts officer in a non-profit) are in direct conflict with spending the next five years pursuing a Ph.D. These realizations have put me more than a little off-balance and I needed to get some perspective on things.




One of the best and simultaneously most infuriating things about my parents is their uncanny ability to provide perspective. They are the most rooted people I know, both living just a few miles from their siblings and a few more from the houses where they grew up. They have a house and a dog. Three adult children making their own way in the world. Their roots run deep--less like the dandelion and more like those of the maple trees in their back yard. They are sturdy and pragmatic. Utterly and unexpectedly beautiful but able to take what nature throws at them. This was one of the occasions in which their rootedness was welcome. They asked me a number of questions about exactly what I want in the next few years, didn't contribute their own opinions, and encouraged many of the decisions I made. They commiserated about low-paying jobs and a poor economy and talked about the small pleasures of their own lives: 30,000 pounds of landscape block converted into a terraced garden; two of their three children at home for dinner; the hot weather finally breaking. Together we sat in the warm twilight and laughed about childhood antics, complained about our baseball team's losing streak, and slapped mosquitoes.

When I returned to Minnesota on Monday, I had no more answers than I had when I left. But those few hours we spent together nourished my own roots, reminded me that sometimes, even plants with shallow roots are tough enough to survive.

***

How It Begins

Here you are, twenty-two and waiting for your life to begin. And this is how it begins. You have no money and make stupid decisions with your credit card. You date and have sex and get your heart broken. Maybe break a few yourself. You might meet the person who makes you think that maybe bars and late nights aren't all they're cracked up to be. You might not. You'll pay down student loans and wonder if all that education was really worth it, if maybe you wouldn't be happier making copies and answering phones or fixing motors and wiping grease from your hands. And then you're thirty and perhaps you start to save for a house, hopefully you've started saving for retirement already. You could have a kid or two. Adopt a dog. Stop moving every twelve months. Plant a garden, even if it's just in a window box. You'll fight with your love about money and bills, whether or not to buy that new car. Get a promotion. Lose your job. And then your kids are growing and adolescent and hate you for reasons neither of you can explain. You buy a car, a motorcycle, maybe find an affair. Maybe just wake up at night next to the one you've always loved. Then the kids are gone, the dog has died and your hair is gray. You've stopped working one day, and then the next it's grandkids, and sleepless nights for no reason and suddenly jaw pain and a tingling in your left arm. But that's all still far away, almost light-years in fact. For now, it's just about a job and bills and sex and moving. Waiting for your life to begin.

Color

Our theme for this week: Color

My mother loves to garden. Her father loved to garden. When I went back to her house over the weekend the very first thing my mother did was take me on a garden tour.

I was glad to take it. I'm most often home during the winter months, when her gardens are covered by several inches of snow. The front, side, and very back gardens are exclusively for flowers. The garden that my father has recently redone for her is exclusively vegetables that she and Dad freeze for the winter.

My mother's gardens are lovely, striking, unique things. I love them because they are beautiful, certainly, but even more because they are extensions of my mother's personality. Anyone who looks at them can see her love of things beautiful and natural, her appreciation for things both tame and wild. Her practicality and thriftiness are apparent in her love for helping things grow.

An ode (of sorts) to my mother and her gardens.

***

My Mother's Garden

My mother's garden is a riot of color. Pink roses and white poppies. Orange tiger lilies growing next to green chili peppers and purple beets. The pink-cream flowers of late pea blossoms wind their way around the grey stone fountain. A yellow goldfinch splashes in the rusty water. My mother, a white bandanna over her wild brown hair, pulls up weeds and talks a blue streak. I worry about her hands, sliced open by weeds and stuck by brambles. Oh, Kelly she says, wiping them on her khaki shorts. We all bleed red.

escaping inwardly

Greetings, all.

For this post, I've wrestled with the role of reading: Why do I do it? What do I gain from it? What is the process? Every book places me in a different world, a different experience. But somehow it grounds me more firmly in this world and this experience of being human. Gift.

LLM

***

The room was filled with joyous, laughing people. They were celebrating: sharing a meal, reminiscing about the past two or three years, talking about what was next. Students were dressed to the nines—dresses and heels, ties and dress pants. Faculty and board members were not quite so formal; they were swept into the tide of excitement coming from the chattering students. Forks and knives clattered against plates, and wine glasses were filled and emptied.

And there I sat, my nose in a book. I didn’t mean for it to happen. The book—a monograph on music and Karl Barth—was just there: a friend was borrowing it from another friend and it was on our table. I absently picked it up, glanced through the opening pages and just started reading. No thought to the activity around me, the rudeness of this gesture. It was a book and therefore it needed to be perused.

“Lauren!” Betsy nearly shouted it. Her eyes were wide and she snatched the book from me. “What are you doing!?! We’re at dinner.”

As I said, it had not been intentional, but I had fallen into the text. That’s how it always happens. My life is pieced together with journeys into books. I slip into them and then emerge, somewhat surprised to find the world around me again, a world of plants and animals, of color, of people, of food and drink. A world that has dimension.

Reading provides me with an escape, a chance to get away and be elsewhere, a journey into someone else’s life. I have danced with Max and the Wild Things, flown with Milkman, observed grasshoppers with Mary Oliver, prayed with any number of theologians, and died with Madame Bovary. I’ve contemplated love with Mary Russell, been an old man with Eliot, and sobered up with Augusten Burroughs.

But the escape only works if I come back to my own life. These stories are folded into my own; they are not all I am, but they are parts of me. They have helped me be a child, a daughter, a woman, a friend, a theologian, a writer, an editor, and a person. Every book takes me beyond myself and, paradoxically, leads me deeper into myself. I do not read to run away; rather, in the departure from this world—of family members and friends, of grief and loneliness, of joy and hope—I enter more fully into it.

T-Shirt

Theme for this week: Comfort

I have tried no fewer than six times to write a prose introduction for this week's poem. I wanted to write something about vulnerability, fashion, and how I can't leave the house in some of my favorite clothes because they're "ugly." However, I can't get anything written that's worth reading. So, without further comment, "Grey"

***

Grey

It started as the kind of fitted t-shirt

you might wear on a date, say,

to the bowling alley or firing range.

And so it was until some unfortunate

drops of paint retired it to weekend wear.

Now, threadbare and ripped,

it smells like my perfume

no matter how many times I wash it.

It's stretched and soft,

the most comfortable thing I own.

You've seen me only in my high heels,

silk stockings, dresses, and makeup.

So I hope it will come as a pleasant surprise

when you come home tonight and find me

sitting, legs crossed at your kitchen table, wearing it

and a smile

and not much else.

Comments

Hey reader(s),

Since we first started blogging here, I've been wondering at the utter lack of comments (particularly because I'm a poet and apparently utterly self-involved.) Is our writing really that bad? Do people not like the themes? Are we both really boring?

Apparently none of these have been the case. The problem has been with Bloggers default commenting settings. These have been changed and you no longer need a Google ID to drop us a note and tell us how much you love what we've been doing, or make suggestions for themes, or ask to write a guest post.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Early Summer, With Gratitude

Our theme for this week: Escape


How many times can you say "thank you" before it starts to lose its meaning? What about "I'm sorry?" Or "I love you?"

"Stop saying I'm sorry and just change!" I've heard this from any number of people--from my mother to a supervisor to exes. I hear it most frequently with regard to my "secrecy," my almost obsessive desire for privacy. (I do see the irony in posting this on a blog, but bear with me.) I don't tell most people in my life about things that are bothering me until weeks after their resolution. There is a difference between what I post here (public life and creative writing) vs. what happens in my day-to-day interactions with people. These are things and events I've already processed. It's events and relationships that are still in motion that I shy away from discussing. It's not because I'm intentionally trying to be malicious or even that I have anything to hide. I just like to keep things to myself. My family, friends, coworkers, etc. are (understandably) put off by my coolness, my unwillingness to say much.

When I meet someone who understands this personality quirk, I am euphoric. Even better, when I meet someone who understands my love for privacy AND the fact that in a small community privacy is almost non-existent AND--if nothing else-- is willing to help me create an illusion of privacy. Suddenly the problem is no longer constantly saying "I'm sorry" and hoping the words still have some weight. Rather, it's finding ways to say "thank you" again and again.

My latest attempt at a thank you.

***

Early Summer, With Gratitude

If you drive us down to the river
I'll watch for deer along the way.
I do not know which is sweeter--
the smell of lavender blooming in the ditches
or that no one knows where we've gone.

What I Would Have You Be

I do not know precisely when I realized that I am being inexplicably pulled toward England. I do not know why, in recent years, the thought of going there persists. I’ve not gone to England for several reasons. Money is one; school was an obstacle and now work is. A plane will be involved in my travel, and that is daunting.

But perhaps there’s another reason. The England I will encounter can in no possible way live up to the England of my imagination—the England that melds fact and fiction. I am quite certain that upon arrival I will meet talking beasts and hobbits. In this perfect world, precise gardens of hedgerows and rose bushes create charming utopias where private parties gather to gossip and while away the hours. Stately women—myself included, of course—wander the grounds in Victorian dress. Elegant men in topper and tails bring me glasses of champagne and offer me their arms for a turn around the garden. We shimmer in the beauty of an English country evening.

Time is not a limitation in this wonderland. And so it is that Elizabeth I mingles with Eliot, he charming her with love songs and quartets. Tolkien finds another world in Bloomsbury. Shakespeare and Holmes study each other warily. Lewis, Austin, and the Brontes banter most civilly about women in literature; their bone-china teacups clatter gently against saucers in the silences of a proper English stoicism. The Stones and the Who occasionally grace us with their presence with a concert on the lawn.

On a whim I’ll leave this idyllic setting and take a train to London to investigate teahouses and bookshops, boutiques and museums. Here, fog, like a cat, curls about the buildings, adding mystery and softness to the old streets. The city is overwhelmingly large and surprisingly quaint. Helen Mirren and I have a lovely chat while King Arthur passes us on horseback. Elizabeth II invites me to her castle for tea, and Jeanette Winterson autographs my books.

It is, as I’ve said, quite impossible.

One day I will go there, and although I’ll not find Narnia or Lothlorien, Austin or Holmes, I’ll find an England that is charming simply because it exists. And perhaps that’s the point of travel: we build it up so that we are reminded that places are real, that we are real.

Fish

Theme for this week: Travel.

I love sea creatures. I have loved fish, certainly, since I was a child--the result of spending summers on a lake. They provided my first lessons in ecology, biology, cooking, and perhaps strangely, reproduction. As I grew older, I became more fascinated by deep-sea fish, the cruel mechanics of their evolution, the desire simply to survive. In high school, I had the opportunity to study oceanography, and I fell in love with sea turtles and sea anemones. My parents once took me snorkling in the Caribbean where I looked a brain coral and eels up close. My greatest desire is to go down in a deep-sea submersible and see some of these amazing animals in their natural habitats.

On Tuesday, my last day in Seattle, my friend Rich had to work. I popped in my headphones and walked down to the Seattle Aquarium. It is the first time I have been to an aquarium since I was very small, and my parents took me to the one in Chicago. I don't remember very much about that one, except eating some fishsticks and walking into the building. I haven't been back as an adult, so I was pretty excited about getting to spend an entire day wandering around looking at fish.

(Domed Tank, Seattle Aquarium)

It was marvelous. I had been traveling for about a week at this point, staying first with friends in Portland and then with Richard in Seattle, so I had very little time to myself. I was feeling a little out-of-sorts (as will happen to an introvert who doesn't get any time to herself) and the opportunity to wander around a new city without any demands on my time or attention was a beautiful experience. Add to that the opportunity to see starfish, sea horses, fish-eating aneomones, sea urchins, seals, otters, pelicans, clownfish, giant prawns, jellyfish, and octopi, and I was (pardon the colloquialism) happier than a pig in shit.

What fascinates me most about marine life is its combination of easy gracefulness and its strength and--frankly--terror. I love that it many species manage to be both beautiful and resilient. Adaptable. Even those species of fish that are most grotesque, the ones that live below the photic zone in the ocean and the sort of things that exist only in your nightmares--all sharp teeth and blind eyes--amaze me in their brute strength, their ability to survive despite all odds. I am captivated and stunned by the ocean. In its beauty and grace. Its adaptations and grotesqueness.

***

Starfish

With one tentative finger I reach into the cool water

and gently prod its bony ridges. The animal--

or maybe fish?--does not move, but accepts my poke.

It is the first starfish I have seen in many years,

since my parents took me to the aquarium

as a curly-haired, serious little girl, Or, perhaps,

it was before that. My grandmother brought back

one that washed up on the shore.

She kept it on a shelf in a curio cabinet,

along with a small Irish prayerbook,

some pictures of Ellis Island,

and an icon of Saint Christopher,

with a small votive candle burning before it.

benches

Hey, reader(s).

Well, it's been a crazy couple of weeks for this half of the blogging project. For our theme of outside, I initially wanted to write about my great-grandmother, her roses, and the last time I saw her.

I still want to write about that, but something else came up. Two weeks ago my uncle committed suicide. He parked his car, walked through Discovery Park in Seattle, sat on a bench, and shot himself. Last week I was in Seattle with family; since returning home I've talked to my mother and e-mailed my aunts, uncles, and grandparents daily. There has been a lot to process. I am turning to words frequently as I work through what has happened.

On Monday night I took a notebook to the wine bar for jazz night, sat in a corner, and wrote out a few things. The prose I attempted was flat, accusatory, and bad. Then I decided to write a poem, which, in all honesty, is probably also flat, accusatory, and bad. But, it's what I have to give this week.

I know some of you already knew about this death. Thank you for all the thoughts and prayers. We've certainly felt them surrounding us and lifting us up.

Peace,

LLM

***

I do not know

the weight of a gun,

the feel of the cool metal

against my skin.

I do not know

what it is to pull a trigger

and know that the target has been hit.

I do not know

the beauty and terror

of one's last view of this earth.

But I sat on your bench last week

and saw nothing but glory,

felt nothing but despair.

Hiatus II

The above photo is of the Portland skyline, which I will see firsthand on Wednesday.

That's right, dear readers, I am off to present a paper on the theology and poetry of Mary Oliver and Rumi at the College Theology Society's annual conference. After said paper presentation I will be spending a few days in the great city of Seattle. Lauren will also be traveling over the next week, so posting will resume on June 12th, with our theme of: "travel."

Contentment

Our theme for this week: Outside

One of the things I love most about gardening or doing the dishes or running or being on my bicycle is that the monotony of the task is such that it frees my mind to do other things. Sometimes I write poems or pretend I'm the subject of an interview for This American Life. Sometimes I think through theology or fundraising. Sometimes I space out and listen to the radio. Whatever it is about keeping my hands busy, my brain manages to reach conclusions it wouldn't otherwise.

Over the weekend, I had the most ordinary, laid-back Saturday ever. I wrote a paper. Read Lolita. Drank some tea, napped, and made dinner. I did a number of small tasks around the house that left my mind free to churn (or particularly in this case, not churn) away over much of what has happened in the past six months. I realized (right around the time that I woke up from my nap) that much of my writing revolves around the feelings of falling into and out of love. I don't focus very often on the sheer and utter contentment that comes with the feeling of being on your own and being happy about it. Saturday was one of those days--blissfully self-involved and quietly decadent--I reached a number of small revelations on Saturday.

***

Contentment

It as not my first night without you.

Or even night at all.

But an ordinary Saturday morning.

I wrote some letters, drank flower tea,

did the dishes and reread Lolita.

It wasn't until later--after a long nap

but before I was making dinner--

I was in the garden cutting herbs

when I realized that I no longer love you.

And how that feels.

And what it means.

The Stories I Tell Myself

Our friend Mark contributed this for our "fate" theme.

The Stories I Tell Myself

Just the other day, while running, I saw a cardinal. I knew it was a cardinal; that red is unmistakable. That red is brighter than a fire engine. The kind of red that reminds you of lip stick, Corvettes, China. It all happened so fast. I was running and then there it was, on the sidewalk, one wing outspread. Then I saw its head, haphazardly displaced a few feet away. Like a discarded clown nose after a birthday party. Absurd and horrifying. I winced, of course. I wince every time. Squirrels, deer, even raccoons. Snakes make me jump. I told myself a story. Dead on impact; the usual lines. But questions remain. Like, "How did its head get separated from its body like that?" and "Is red more beautiful now than before?" Lately, falling asleep has been easier. I count backwards from a thousand. I don't say "nine hundred and ninety-nine." I say "nine ninety-nine, nine ninety-eight, nine ninety seven..." Either it works or I get distracted and start telling myself a story. No matter the story, sleep is the ending. I drive a lot for my job. Close to five-hundred miles a week. I complain sometimes but driving is my practice. I see and think in relative motion. I try my best to avoid phone calls and I only text when the parking break is on. One must follow the rules. I listen to radio news. I gather facts. I look at clouds. I get irritated by teenagers. I turn my head for boys in Audis but that's a different story. My job takes me to the outskirts. It's where I grew up. A little bit country, a little bit suburbia. Country clubs. Hidden driveways. Lots of yellow signs. Some public, some private. Some depicting jumping deer. Like I said, I wince. I've seen roadkill before. Who hasn't? But I didn't see her at first. No, she "came out of nowhere" as the saying defends. I became fixated on her gleaming white tail. It all happened so fast. Fast and hard towards the silver SUV which I'd graciously let pass before turning into its wake. It was a 55mph zone. The driver - I saw the her hair in profile - was easily approaching 70. I tried not to judge. I've replayed this sequence hundreds of times. Images in motion stay in motion. It all happened so fast. It was absurd; a cartoon crash and flip. She landed in the ditch. She tried to stand up, to run away. She couldn't. God only knows the damage inside. Broken bones. Internal bleeding. I drove past the stopped SUV; the driver inside held her head in her hands. My window was cracked. I felt a breeze, heard birds singing. I glanced into the rear view mirror. Her body writhed but her head stayed steady. Poise, I thought. I started to cry. I was running late. What could I do? Two days later, I told my therapist I was afraid of dying alone. It was a bullshit line. I won't die alone. No matter the circumstance, I know that truth. What I should have said was that I am afraid of dying in fear. I went back. I had to. The SUV was gone. So was the doe. Just a tuft of white in the grass. I imagined a gun. I imagined irises. I don't know what you tell yourself at night. I won't ask. I've come this far. I know a thing or two. I know that we're all headed towards something. They say the sun is a star. Like all stories, there's a beginning, middle, and an end. And I am comforted.

Fate

Greetings, all.

Here's my post on fate. This is the first 500 words; I wrote over 1,000, and might post the rest later. For now, this.

Fate was an interesting topic to ponder, especially because Kelly and I have such different takes on it. For her, fate is a dealbreaker; it's as unspeakable as inadequate Christology. For me, fate is after-the-fact perspective. I don't really trust fate or believe in fate; what I do believe is that, as my mother says, God gets you where you're supposed to be.

When I think about all the changes and movements of my life, what I see is not fate but opportunity. Recently I was speaking to a friend about the delicacy of timing: How do we know when it's time to let go or cling? To pursue or retreat? To stick our necks out or be still? As I ponder my life, I'm amazed at the opportunities that have come to me. And they've all come at the right time.

I've no reason to think the future will be any different. Perhaps that's trusting in fate.

At least my Christology is adequate.

Peace,

LLM

***

I made my first trip to Minnesota in January of my senior year of high school. The college counselor thought that the College of Saint Benedict would be the perfect place for me to study. I had spent my whole life in Kansas City, Missouri; I liked it there and wanted to stay somewhat close. At the same time, I was attracted by the adventure and possibility that a place like Minnesota could hold. The school, a women’s college partnered with a men’s university several miles away, sounded like a great fit for me: rigorous academics, strong and sound theology, valued women’s intellect and contribution to the world. The only problem was that it was five hundred miles from home.

Despite the distance, mom and I decided to make the drive. One can’t say no to an opportunity without being fully informed of the decision being made. When we hit hour eight of nine, Neil Diamond was singing “Both Sides Now.” We had just gotten in to Minneapolis and a steady snowfall was coming down around us. I began to cry. Mom navigated the fairly stressful driving conditions and managed to ask why I decided now was a good time to start freaking out.

“I can’t do this,” I said. “There’s no way I can be this far from home.”

“Should we turn around?” she asked.

“No,” I told her. “Let’s go see it. But I’m not coming here!”

Knowing that I wouldn’t be attending the school that coming autumn, the tour was fairly relaxed. We saw the college campus, marveled at the dorms that were connected by tunnels, saw the library and campus ministry offices. All this in the bitter cold with nearly a foot of snow on the ground. As part of the tour, mom and I went to Saint John’s University, the men’s campus that is partnered with Saint Ben’s. Saint John’s is home of the School of Theology, a well-respected graduate school and seminary. I remember nothing of the tour of the Saint John’s campus but our leaving. We headed toward the interstate, the abbey’s bell banner filling the rear window, and I said to mom, “Well, I’m not coming for undergrad, but maybe I’ll get my master’s here.”

***

Early in my junior year of college I contacted the admissions director for the School of Theology at Saint John’s. He knew a friend of mine in Atchison who also taught at the SOT. Sister Irene, a member of the women’s religious community that cosponsored the college I attended, stopped me one day as I was heading to the chapel for prayer. “I hear you’ve been talking to Mr. Duffy,” she said, smiling.

“Yes, I have. How did you find out?”

“He called a few days ago asking if I might know a certain young woman who was looking at coming to Saint John’s. When he said it was you, I laughed and told him I know you very well. We need to talk about Saint John’s some day!”

Not long after that Irene and I had a three-hour conversation about Saint John’s—her experiences as a student and a teacher, her friendships with the monks, her sense that it would be a wonderful place for me.

I left her office determined to study at Saint John’s.

This necessitated another trip north. Again, mom came with me. Again, I was nervous about the distance. But this time there was more excitement than trepidation. We met with professors, sat in on some classes, dined with students, and wandered around the campus. Immediately I knew I was home, that this would be the place for me to study.

And so it proved.