There Was a Time

Happy Saturday!

My reflection on music. One of the struggles I'm confronting as a result of this blog is remembering how to tell stories. I don't succeed in this post either, but I'm getting closer. Details have always been a struggle for me; reflection comes much more naturally. My mother used to edit my papers for me when I was in grade school and high school. "You're not painting the picture," she'd tell me in an effort to get me to describe something better. When I sit down to write, that phrase is constantly in my head--"paint the picture."

I do like what's here though. I've not written about my grandparents before, so perhaps this could be better considered a character sketch.

It intrigues me that both Kelly and I chose to write about our grandmothers for this topic and that we both wrestle with memory as a result. Just an observation.

I'm certainly open to thoughts or critiques.

If you're not familiar with it, this version of "I Dreamed a Dream" is quite stunning.

***

Music and memory—they are intimately bound. “American Pie” reminds me of my dad. “How Great Thou Art” and “World Falls” of my mother. Indigo Girls’ 12:00 Curfews was my soundtrack when I left home for the first time and went to college. There are songs that remind me of friendships, of relationships that were or were not, of who I was and who I am and who I hope to be.

My grandmother has Multiple Sclerosis; it is a disease she has lived with for nearly thirty years. Despite the pain and frustration of the disease, she remains one of the most positive and trusting people I know. My grandparents lived close to my mom and me until I was seventeen; then they moved to Washington state to be closer to their other grandchildren and in the hopes that the absence of temperature extremes would be better for Grandma.

I carry with me many memories of Grandma: watching game shows with her; drinking caffeine free Diet Coke; shopping at antique malls; watching her beautiful hands quilt works of art that still decorate my bed; going to church with her and Grandpa; decorating the Christmas tree; setting the table for holidays, the table that Grandpa slept on when he was a baby; going with her every year to get new shoes for school; the way she laughs at jokes and stories.

But perhaps the memory that evokes the most feeling is the memory of her singing. We Murphys are good at many things—owning businesses, being creative, fixing problems—but spectacular singers we are not. My grandparents had an upright piano in their home for years, and my mom and her siblings remember Grandma playing it frequently. But this is their memory, not mine.

When I was younger, we would drive to Nebraska, Colorado, California, or Washington for family reunions or visits. Grandma and Grandpa would be in the front seat, smoking cigarettes or cigarillos, while mom and I sat in back sleeping or reading. Aside from the near asphyxiation, these memories are great ones. I’m sure we listened to a variety of music; I know we listened to Neil Diamond. But the memory of Les Miserables is in my bones. No doubt we all chimed in, but “I Dreamed a Dream” belongs to Grandma. Her voice—deep, loud, dominating—commands that song, even today.

And I wonder what dream she dreamed.

In This Loud House

As a special treat this week, we've asked a good friend of ours to contribute a poem

Mark Dennis Anderson was born and raised just beyond the western border of Minneapolis, where he fell in love with backyard exploration and peanut butter toast. A trained musician, Anderson currently works as a piano instructor and lives in Northeast Minneapolis with his partner and cat.

***

In This Loud House

They say rests are used in music for silence but I know better than that. Between staccato Gs and sforzando Ds, I hear a cough and a sigh. And what about the sound of pages turning, that paper cut sound that gives me the goosebumps? The composer didn't intend for that, did she? Silence is anything but silent though we may not always hear it; the sound of air streaming though a vent; the murmured gurgle of an empty stomach; the whistle of a teakettle, readying the morning; the cracking of knees, bending; the clink of a cup, hitting the table; the inevitable pause; a breathy semi-colon. I was once unsettled by your silence so I turned on the radio to drown you out. Now, in this loud house, I have grown to delight in your holy quietude and, when I listen closely, I hear you loving me.

Rye Whiskey

This week's theme: Music

When my mother talks about my grandmother she constantly comes back to certain topics. My grandmother's fried chicken. Her anti-Vietnam activism. The fact that she raised nine children, three of whom had Down's Syndrome. That Grandma taught herself to walk on her prosthetic leg when the doctors told her she would never walk again. That she went back to school and earned her nursing degree in her 40s.

Grandma was one tough lady.

More than any of these things, my mom talks about my grandmother's love of music. She had, it seems, a natural ability to hear a song once and then to play it on any number of instruments. Her favorites music was either country (Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, and Slim Whitman) or folk songs/hymns (Amazing Grace, Red River Valley). I inherited a love for the same music from her, but unfortunately her natural ability to carry a tune wasn't passed on to either my mom, my brothers, or me.

Grandma died while I was still very young, and I remember very little about her. There are a few fragmented memories of her reading to me, or puttering around her house in Milwaukee--smoking and talking to my Granddad. I remember banging on the piano that was in her living room and a few moments when she sat down with me to try to turn my cacophonous banging into something with a little more substance.

It wasn't until I was in college that a memory came floating back to me. I'm not even sure if it's a real memory or something pieced together from how I think things might have been. My mom was riding in the back of my car reading a copy of Garrison Keillior's Good Poems for Hard Times. She came across the lyrics for "Rye Whiskey" and asked me if I remembered Grandma singing it.

I do. I think.

Even if the memory I have is simply one that I've constructed, I treasure it beyond belief. The song reminds me of this incredible woman who died before I had the chance to know her.

***
Rye Whiskey

It was the first song I learned

when I was still very young. Sitting next to Grandma's

rocker while she smoked cigarettes and played her guitar.

Jesus Walked that Lonesome Valley, Amazing Grace,

Red River Valley, How Can I keep from Singing?

These came later, around the same time I realized

what Rye Whiskey was and why Grandma always sounded so sad

when she sang about it.

We All Fall Down

Greetings, readers.

My post for this week was slow in coming. And it's not been refined or edited. The words started (finally!) to shape themselves and so I got them down. Some of the things I wrestled with for this week's post fell into the category of relevance. I wrote something on Sunday, but on Wednesday it felt hollow. The writing I did on Monday didn't sing when I read it again on Tuesday. So for a few days I just backed away...and to be quite honest, I was not going to post at all on this theme. But I'm nothing if not stubborn and I figure (hope) this is a pretty safe place for even the shitty first drafts.

LLM

Over the years writing has become a habit for me. Since my freshman year of college I’ve filled eight five-subject notebooks. I do not write every evening, but most nights the pen hits the paper. I’ve written countless papers, essays, and reflections for classes. I have special notebooks I use for the thoughts that come to me during prayer.

I write; it’s what I do.

With this writing, there is, of course, struggle. Recently I’ve begun to wrestle with the notions of relevance and transience. What was true yesterday may not be true today. The self recorded in the first five-subject notebook is not the self I am today. In some cases, I cringe when I return to those early musings. At other times, I’m surprised by the attentiveness and, rarely, the wisdom in those pages.

But it all passes; it all shifts and changes. At some point the writing, the musing, the insights all disappear.

***

A few years ago I went to the morning Mass for Ash Wednesday at the women’s religious community in my college town. The community distributes ashes at Morning Prayer rather than at Mass, but as I was leaving the chapel after the service, the prioress stepped out of her stall with a dish of ashes. She anointed my forehead, saying, “Remember you are dust and to dust you will return.”

Later that day in an e-mail she wrote, “I’m glad I was able to remind you of your mortality this morning.”

It’s not a thing I like to ponder, this mortality. I do not care for Benedict’s admonition to “keep death daily before [my] eyes.” I hope for the pride of permanence.

Writing, perhaps more than anything else I do, reminds me that someday I will not be here. I will return to dust and so will my words.

And still I write.

In Event of Fire

This week's theme: Ashes.

Friday night I was cleaning my room. In the struggle to impose order on the chaos of novels, volumes of poetry, comps books, papers, and clothing, I picked up a copy of Rilke's Duino Elegies and an envelope full of letters fell out. While not love letters--such as they normally are-- they are letters from someone about whom I cared deeply, and for whom I still have conflicting emotions. My first urge on seeing these letters was to cry. My second was to get rid of them: throw them away, run them through the shredder, rip them up and flush them down the toilet, do whatever was necessary to get them out of my life.

I didn't do any of these things. I didn't read them either. I tucked them into the top drawer of my nightstand between a bouquet of lavender flowers I picked from my mother's garden and an impromptu speech topic from my Academic Decathalon days. The top drawer of my nightstand is where I store things with a sort of bittersweet sentimental value. Flowers from my childhood home. A speech topic card from the most influential teacher I ever had. The letters from a person who taught me what I want out of my relationships. These are little things--objects that I would not choose to save if I had to save just a few things from my house--but I keep in that top drawer regardless.

While I was putting the letters away, I started to think about this magpie tendency I've developed over the years. Surely the next time I move it would be easier to clear out this drawer, throw these things that I've collected away, and start fresh.

It would be easier. Just like it would be easier not to remember working in the garden with my mother as a child. Or remembering that at 18 I imagined my life at 25 much differently. Or thinking about the relationships at which I've failed and why I've failed. These memories are painful, surprisingly so. But these events are all a part of me in a way I could have never anticipated and don't know if I'll ever fully understand. That's why I hold on to these things that I wouldn't bother to save if my house was burning down. It's just some dead flowers. Just a recycled business card with a corny speech topic on it. Just a few handwritten pages.

Just a little record of the person I thought I was going to become.

***

In Event of Fire

Please grab the family bible, its pages full of every birth and death, wedding and baptism since 1850. Try to make sure the dog gets out, and pound on your sister's door. We always said she could sleep right through a disaster. I'll take your granddad's purple heart and your grandmother's wedding rings. The other important things--car titles, birth certificates, passports--are all in the safe deposit box at the bank. In the locked bottom drawer of Great-Uncle Marshall's desk? It's a packet of letters. Let it burn.

Light!

Good evening, all. A post about light. For some reason I had trouble writing this entry. I found myself overwhelmed with the many ways one can approach light. But these words from John's gospel were the constant refrain as I pondered this week's theme. I figured that meant I should work with them.

Thoughts welcome and appreciated!

***

I am not light, pure light that envelopes darkness. At times I am radiant; I can shine with joy and excitement, but this certainly isn’t an everyday occurrence. Instead I experience light. I stand in awe of the winter sun—crisp, bright, and hopeful—in Minnesota. I obey my mother, a photographer, when she tells me to pose in any given way because of how the light falls. I extend daylight with the miracle of electricity. I exist in light, but I am not light.

These winter days I am drawn to the words of Jesus: “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). John’s Jesus deals in hyperbole. This Jesus says he is the way, the truth, the life; the good shepherd; the bread of life; the resurrection and the life. He: the Messiah.

But it isn’t really hyperbole when we’re talking about the Son of God, is it? No; exaggeration would be so much easier. Like Grandpa George who always talks about walking eight miles to school uphill both ways in snow up to his eyeballs. Or Aunt Helen who tells stories about summer days so hot they fried eggs on the sidewalk. Exaggeration would mean I could dismiss this light; I could turn it off.

But the light that Jesus provides is different. It can’t be turned off. It is constant, consuming, captivating. Existing in this light is to become one with it. And that takes courage.

In his gospel, John makes a distinction between those who don’t walk in light and those who do. Nicodemus comes to Jesus under the cover of darkness. Jesus converses with the Samaritan woman at noon. The former is a secret disciple; his faith is lacking. He is afraid of what those around him will think if he, a Pharisee, is seen learning from this troublemaker Jesus. The woman at the well, however, acts as a model disciple; she is the first person to whom Jesus confesses his messiahship. He engages her in theological conversation, and she experiences a conversion of heart, a conversion that she proceeds to share with the people of her village.

And I, where do I fall? In these days preceding Lent, I ponder that question. I am craving light—that of the sun and the Son. I am not Nicodemus, hiding in the night. Nor am I the woman at the well, ready to lead others to conversion. Rather, I come to Jesus at dawn. I stand between darkness and light—hesitant to leave the cover of night where I am anonymous yet hopeful that the light will soon envelope me, turning me into light as well.

What I've Been Told

(Our theme for this week: Light)

Last week, Lauren posted what may be one of my favorite lines that she's ever written: "Loss breaks me. Death shatters me." I love it because of its simplicity and truth. Despite everything I've ever been taught and believe about life after death, death still terrifies me. Infuriates me. Shatters me.

One of my dirtiest secrets as a faithful Roman Catholic and as a student of theology is the fact that I doubt. Whether it's the deposit of faith in the Catholic Church, the constitutive nature of Christ's incarnation, or simply the fact that there is something after this life, I struggle to support this gift of faith.

I think. I question. I theologize. I doubt. And for all of this thinking and theologizing my doubt never seems to lessen.

In the face of loss and death, everything I thought I knew about God seems like nothing more than a platitude. Even when it is something that three days earlier I thought I believed with every fiber of my existence and something I know I will accept again when my period of grieving is over, I want nothing to do with it.

I lack the theological vocabulary to talk about this doubt in an engaging way. I've been exploring it poetically for a few years now. It helps, if nothing else, to put the words down--to admit that I doubt.

As an aesthetic and literary aside, I'm dissatisfied with the final three lines of the poem. Any feedback would be deeply appreciated.

***

What I’ve Been Told

I have always been told
that when I die everything will be filled
with golden light, angel song,
people I have loved.
Or, burning, blazing light full
of screaming and people like Nero or Stalin.
I am no longer afraid of angel song and golden light
or even of blazing bonfires.
Rather, of discovering nothing but darkness.

Rose Window

I am fragile. My heart has been known to break; my feelings get hurt; I bleed when I am cut.

The consolation: I’m not the only one. We are all broken, chipped, in some way or another. We resist it, this brokenness, because it means we’re vulnerable. But stained glass windows are made of pieces that have been shattered, cut, splintered. We may feel like panes of glass carelessly smashed, but maybe that’s the only way we’ll become the rose window in the house of God.

Loss breaks me. Death shatters me. The pieces fall and scatter and I can’t imagine how they’ll ever fit together again. Maybe they aren’t supposed to. Chips are inevitable. I’ve spent twenty-one years clutching the shards of my dad’s death. Once a year I open my hands, I stop clutching, and I see the wounds, fresh and bleeding. The day comes and goes, the wounds open and heal. I am glass; I hold glass. I break again.

Part of me wants to let go, to empty the shards into the nearest dustbin, to clean the wounds, and, once healed, acknowledge the scars as an oddity on my otherwise beautiful hands. But I can’t do it. I am not the man at Bethesda who, when asked if he wants to be made well, answers that he has tried to heal. No, in this case, the healing would be worse; it is not a wellness I am willing to accept.

Rather, my shattered spirit has become my offering. It is what I have to give, this brokenness.

And perhaps we are not really whole unless we are chipped.