Good News/Bad News

Hello, readership.

I have news. You, the readers, are allowed to decide whether it is good, bad, indifferent or any combination thereof.

Lauren and I have agreed to start blogging again.

The past few months have been a nightmare of deadlines, job-searching, looking for apartments, and you know, finishing my dual Masters degrees. However, now I am embarking on a new career, moving to a new city, and LLM and I agreed that it's time to start writing together again.

I'm glad to be back.

***

This week's theme: Summer.

***

Summer 

You are not the oak tree outside my window,

sturdy and beautiful, stretching to the morning light.

Or the lightning of a midsummer storm, brilliant and terrifying.

For my part, I am not the fresh cut hay,

soft and fragrant, warmed by the afternoon sun.

Or the first rose of summer, beautiful and understated.

And we most certainly are not the loons on the lake,

mated with one another for the rest of our lives.

Instead, you are the one walking down

the country road winding next to the lake.

And I am the one who is walking down

the winding country road with you.

And we are the ones walking beneath the oaks,

seeing distant lightning, smelling roses,

and freshly cut hay, listening to the loons on the lake,

who, as it turns out, don't actually mate for life.

Ugly

As an aside, this week's short writing piece does not coincide at all with the poem. Also, after Lauren read it, she described the poem as "like getting punched in the gut" and "brutally sad."

xo,
KMJ

***

I am not a cute runner.

Before I go any further, I need to state that there cute runners. My cousin is one of them. All of her marathon  pictures look like Nike ads. Her husband is the same way. After they sent me pictures of the Ironman they ran last September, I wanted to know if they had been retouched. They were too perfect.

I am not one of those runners. I'm pushing some extra weight.  I don't have a beautiful stride, matching running clothes, or a bouncing ponytail. I'm usually moving pretty slowly. Watching me run is pretty ugly.

Despite all of this, I still run. I run because at the end of a long workout, I feel the way a Catholic is supposed to feel after they go to confession. Light. Refreshed. As if everything that's gone wrong in the past few days has been left behind me on the road.

I think, ultimately, that's worth a little ugliness.

***

How It Ends

She loved to cook and he to eat, so that's how it all began. She would cook. He would eat. They would talk about work or their spouses, perhaps drink some wine. Her recipes became more elaborate, his waistline, larger. They both made overtures at something else, but it never went anywhere because it couldn't go anywhere. He carried home leftovers from her meals; she took away his laughter at her jokes. One night, after years of food and wine, laughter and a little sadness, he wiped his lips and cleared his throat. "I'm leaving my wife," he said. "For who?" she asked. "Someone else." He replied. They were silent for awhile, until she met his eyes and said "I have an early meeting." He left and walked down the block, realizing halfway to his car that he had forgotten the leftovers she always prepared. He went back and rang the bell. She never answered. 

Firsts

We have been rather remiss in posting.

I'd like to insert a list of perfectly valid reasons--reasons that would make the readers of this blog be both awed by the writing and dazzled by the courageousness of writing in the face of so many obstacles. That's the kind of list I would like to have.

To be perfectly honest, on my part, I haven't been writing. I've been desperately trying to track down the last bit of writing I did, hoping and praying that dear God I really have written something since November, but it's simply not true. After finishing my thesis and classes last semester, I did not want to have anything to do with my computer except watch Netflix. I have been absolutely lazy. I read three novels and spent the rest of break zoning out in front of the television. I'm not particularly proud of that choice, but after 2.5 years of having comps/language exam/thesis to worry about during breaks, I was grateful for the opportunity to shut my brain down for an extended period.

It. Was. Glorious.

It's also slightly remiss to say that I did nothing except watch television. I went to Christmas parties. I cooked. I met new people. I visited with old friends and family. I met actual people who read this blog and are not related to me. I went vintage thrifting. I read three months of back issues of Harper's Bazaar. I didn't check my grades. I lounged and did laundry and gloated over the variety of expensive kitchen gadgets I received as Christmas presents. I updated the list of my most loved/most hated words. Generally, I just recharged for this semester.

But now. It's time to get back into academic and other-kinds of writing. So, without further procrastination:

Our theme: Firsts

***

Dinner


It was not veal piccata or bouillabaisse. It was not boeuf bourguignon. Not steak helene. Not puttanesca. It was certainly not braised scallops or mussels cooked in wine. It was not any of the other gourmet meals I would make through the years. It was just a chicken, breaded in herbs and the closest I could approximate  to my grandmother's recipe. Fried in a skillet while I was drinking a Pabst and we were talking idly about the day, the plans for the weekend, the weather. It was nothing Julia Child would provide for a dinner party, but sitting at kitchen table in our jeans, with our beer and the late early-summer sun, it was everything I wanted.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Understanding A Car Crash

This week's theme: Fate

Somewhat recently, Lauren was editing a paper I wrote. She left the following comment in the margin: I hope you never have any reason to criticize my theology. You're brutal.

When I asked her, later, what she meant by this she told me that I wasn't wishy-washy in my critiques of other theologians. I am almost completely intolerant of what I view as inadequate theology. I take my position and defend it strongly.

It wasn't until recently that I discovered how much this aspect of my theological life spills over into my regular life. I had a social engagement in March and the topic of fate came up. He is a great believer in fate and destiny (Are they the same thing? He seemed to imply that they aren't.) and how people are destined to come into one another lives.

"Bullshit." I responded.

"I'm sorry?"

"Bullshit."

The conversation that followed grew increasingly tense and heated. He kept claiming that fate is inexorable. We owed our very friendship to fate. I contended that belief in fate is a major character flaw. It is, in fact, a dealbreaker when it comes to relationships in my life. Believing in fate is a blunt refusal to take responsibility for one's own choices and actions in the world. You are no longer accountable for the people you hurt, the jobs you screw up, the small triumphs in your life. They are nothing more than the universe's will. It is the ultimate test of immaturity in another person.

We haven't spoken since. Perhaps it was not meant to be.

***

Understanding a Car Crash

I was baking a cake and realized that we were out of butter. The grocery store is right through the alley, so I pulled one of your shirts off the clothesline and buttoned it over my camisole and jeans. It smelled like expensive laundry soap and sunshine. It was a warm May day was filled with the sound of bees humming in the lilies of the valley and lilacs. My neighbor drove past in a newly restored '69 Mustang, a car I've been coveting since I moved into this house. He was listening to something loud, I think it was the Eagles. There was a warbler building a nest in the trees. I was thinking about the cake I was baking, worried the frosting wouldn't set. The sun was so bright I wished I had thought to grab my sunglasses, even for this brief walk through the alley. Thinking about it now, the sunny silence of the morning shattered, it must have been terribly bright--why else would that glossy black car have missed seeing the golden retreiver wander into his lane, causing him to swerve suddenly into oncoming traffic, then crumple into a rainbow of broken glass and chrome.

Storms

This week's theme: Storms

I have always, to use an Austenian turn of phrase, been of an anxious disposition. When I was a little girl I used to sleep on the floor at the end of the hallway between the bedrooms because I was afraid of any number of things including but not limited to: demonic possession (thanks Roman Catholicism!), burglars, ghosts, my sleepwalking younger brother, and thunderstorms.

I have, for the most part, overcome many of these fears (partially because I no longer live in a creaky house surrounded by people who talk and walk in their sleep). One of the few fears I have not managed to master is my fear of and distaste for thunderstorms.

I am not talking about the occasional hard rain shower with a little thunder or lightening, but the huge windy, wild, midsummer storms we have here in the midwest. The kind of storms that can easily bring about hail and high winds. Pounding rain and tornados. While I no longer sleep on the floor in the hallway, when one of these storms blows up it takes every ounce of self-possesion and rationality I have not to run into the basement and cower under the stairs with a blanket over my head.

Storms do not bring out the best in me.

***

Storms

When we were young, we had a dog who was afraid of loud noises. Thunder, mainly. But also, the way cars backfired, the vacuum cleaner, the sound of my father's motorcycle pulling into the driveway. It was my job to walk him and more than once it started to storm. We lived in the country then, so, angry and drenched, I would have to half-drag all ninety pounds of frightened dog through the mud. Once, after a fight with my mother over clothing and money and grades and boys, I stormed from the house pulling the dog after me. After a few miles it began to rain and then to thunder. When the dog balked I pulled his leash ferociously, nearly choking him. He refused to move, just sat and looked at me and trembled until I knelt, put my arms around him, and wept.

Ashegon Lake

Our theme for this week: Kinship

This is a picture of the most beautiful place in the world.

I know what you're thinking. This is hardly picturesque. The water is grey-black and what's with that old raft? This may be many things, but it is certainly not beautiful.

It is a photograph taken from the screened in porch of my family's cabin in Northern Wisconsin. That's my Gran on the dock along with my younger brother. Grandma built the cabin with my grandfather 50 years ago. It's the place where my brothers, cousins, and I all passed our summers.

I had, overwhelmingly, a really beautiful childhood complete with brothers with whom I could fight, a big shaggy dog, and a lovely big backyard with a fort and a tree to climb. But summers at the lake were perfect. We swam, played cards and ate ice cream with our great aunt, had campfires, told ghost stories, hiked and most importantly, learned to fish.

My entire family fishes, including my 86 year old grandmother. It's one of the few enjoyments that we all share (that and a love for Jarts) and can do very amicably as a family. It's something I do very rarely now that I live in Minnesota, but every year I meet my folks at the cabin for a weekend during their vacation. Pa and I usually head out at least once to go fishing together and it is a moment I cherish every year. It's a moment to remember and offer a small prayer of gratitude for my life and keep those memories and relationships as part of my present.

***

Ashegon Lake

The sun has already gone behind the ring of trees

surrounding the lake when Dad fires up the motor

on Grandma's old boat. I run down the three concrete steps,

step off the dock and into the boat beside him,

careful not to spill the worms we dug out of the earth earlier.

My hands are dirty, like his, as are my jeans and old shoes.

I drop a cooler full of PBR and a bucket behind us and off we go.

When we get to the beaver dam, I'll dangle my feet in the water.

He'll cast and have a fish before I'm finished untangling my line

and cussing the slipperiness of the worms.

We'll talk, a little, He'll tell me how he met Mom, ask about work.

But mainly, we'll drink our beer, fish for smallmouth and panfish,

anticipating the crackle and pop they'll make

filleted and frying in a pan of hot oil

Possibility

This week's theme: Bread

I was accused a few weeks ago of not being very spontaneous. The conversation actually began based on my own admission of being a very difficult person to date. The person who made the accusation agreed, mainly because my standards are preposterously high (somewhere out there is my Mr. Darcy) and because, apparently, I am lacking in spontaneity.

At first I was offended by these remarks, particularly as we had begun our friendship rather recently. More importantly, having a Benedictine whose life is based on the recurring rhythms of work and prayer tell you that you're not spontaneous enough is a bit like having a reality TV star tell you that you're a narcissist. Yet, since that conversation I've been more attentive to the value I place on routine. I was shocked to discover that I am defined by my routines. Some of them make sense. I follow a prescribed pattern before I go to bed every night because I suffer from insomnia and the routine helps me fall asleep. I am in the library four nights a week because I'm worried about passing comps. But other routines (the way my morning starts, my exact time for eating lunch every day, the time at which I take my walk) are just patterns. They have no significance aside from the fact that I do these things at these times every day. This in itself is not a bad thing. However, the fact that when the routine is changed I become terribly angry is deeply problematic.

I am not spontaneous.

This lack of spontaneity has nothing to do with this week's theme of bread. Rather, it was my reflections on making bread (which is not something one does spontaneously) and sharing bread that brought me to think of this conversation. My deepest apologies to Lauren, but I've admirably circumvented the theme for this week.

I'm not sold on the poem's title and would happily take suggestions

***

Possibility

Tomorrow morning, you'll wake early,

pack a basket full of fruit and wine,

cold-press coffee and bread we baked together.

You'll put this in the backseat of the car,

along with the quilt your mother made us

and the copy of Lady Chatterly's Lover

you've been reading to me before I fall asleep.

You'll wake me when you're finished

and hand me the phone so I can call in sick.

We'll spend the entire day taking long walks and later,

lying on the quilt reading aloud to one another,

perhaps even letting the novel inspire us to reenact a scene or two.

Exhausted, we'll return home. Each already reveling in memories of the afternoon.

Although, it is possible that when you come to wake me

I'll remember my calendar full of appointments, the printer deadline

that must be met, the phone calls that have to be returned,

and that it's absolutely necessary that you return that bike lock to the store.

For My Mother

This week's theme: Gratitude.

Did you know that phrase "spittin' image" means more than doppleganger?

Spittin' image is a good Southern phrase and it means that you are the "spirit and image" of another person. It means that you not only look like the other person, but you also embody a part of the other person's personality.

I am the spittin' image of my mother.

For a long time, I wasn't proud of the fact that we resembled one another so closely. I hated my curly hair and short legs; that I loved bluegrass and country music; that I am eternally disposed to keep on the sunny side (about ten years ago I equated sadness with depth); that I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Our relationship from the time I was eleven until the time I was seventeen was awful, and we both admit it. I was a terrible teenager--smart, but incapable of applying myself to subjects I didn't like (everything aside from English classes); grouchy; uncomfortable in my own skin; and obstinate as all get-out. To this day, I'm still not sure how she found the grace to put up with my many and varied mood swings, or how she managed to know that drawing a flower in marker on my lunch bag every morning was something that would get through to me and remind me that she loved me.

The older I get, the more grateful I am that I so closely resemble Mother Prosen. We have the same sense of humor; the same choices in food and smells; the same habits for dealing with stress; the same taste in old movies; the same laugh. Moreover, I am grateful that I still get to have my mother in my life as a close friend.

I often worry that I don't tell her how important she is, or how grateful I am that she didn't give up on me when it would have been so easy.

I love you, Mom.

***

For My Mother

My mother brings me warm ginger ale,
takes another blanket from the cedar chest,
heats me chicken soup and adds saltines.
She gets The Philadelphia Story from Blockbuster
and checks to make sure my cell phone is charged.
"Call me at work if you need anything." she says,
kissing my forehead goodbye.
I am twenty-four. Fiercely independent
and living hundreds of miles away for years now.
Today, however, I am on her couch,
sick with the flu during my yearly visit,
and so weak I can't stand without her arm.
Drifting to sleep, I worry about the day
when I will do this for her. The blankets and broth.
The Philadelphia Story and ginger ale.
The pharmacy visits and late night temperature readings.
That day will come too soon. For now,
I'm happy to sleep on her couch. Eat her soup.
Let her love me.

Peaceful

This week's theme: Forgiveness

I struggle with insomnia and have for most of my life. When I say I struggle with insomnia, I don't mean that I have occasional sleepless nights. I mean that there is at least one and more often three or four nights a week that I don't sleep more than three hours. It's not because I've napped during the day, exercised too late or too little, or had caffeine after 3:00 PM. I've managed to teach myself to avoid all of these things in my quest for better sleep. I am simply sleepless. When I do manage to sleep, I sleepwalk all over the house or have dreams from which I wake unable to differentiate between what was going on in my dream world and what is happening in reality.

All of these make it difficult for me to share a bed or a room with someone. This is to say nothing of the nightmares I have; the talking I do in my sleep; the fact that I steal all of the covers; don't like to be touched unexpectedly; and when I'm particularly exhausted, sleep with my mouth open and drool all over everything. I think its better when someone stays over to have one of us sleep on the futon, despite the fact that my room is warmer and my bed more comfortable. I'm unwilling to keep them awake all night or show the kind of vulnerability that it takes to drool all over yourself while unconscious and trust that the other person won't wake up, see you, and find you repugnant.

I hope that someday I'll get to the point where I'm comfortable and happy to share my sleep and my vulnerability with someone. For the time being, I'll keep extra blankets and pillows on the futon.

***

Peaceful

I don't love lying awake and watching you sleep. Forgive me, but I don't even love sleeping next to you. Your mouth is almost always open and you drool all over everything--your hand tucked under your cheek, the book you brought to bed with you, my pillow, your pillow. You steal all the blankets and then kick them to the floor in the middle of the night. Then there's the insomnia. The tossing and turning until 4:00 in the goddamn morning. I have to go to bed hours before you to get half a night's sleep. There's the talking and crying out in your sleep. Sometimes your legs move like a dog dreaming of chasing a car. There are those night though, usually Fridays, where you come to bed early and fall asleep immediately. Mouth closed, blankets shared, utterly silent and still all night. In the morning, after I've slipped downstairs to get coffee and the paper, I'll return to find you curled on my side of the bed, only half awake. "How'd you sleep?" I'll ask handing you your coffee and the Arts section. "How can it possibly matter," you'll reply, reaching instead for my scruffy face. "When I get to wake up to this?'

Simplicity

This week's theme: Food

I love to cook.

There are a number of reasons I love cooking, but two stand out particularly. Watching other people take genuine enjoyment out of something I've made is one of the greatest delights of my adult life. The process of making the meal is another.

Cooking is so simple. Even the most difficult recipe can be reduced to its ingredients. I love to work on a really involved recipe after reading systematic theology, or when I'm emotionally overwrought or spiritually dry. Cooking is meditative. It's simple and routine and something which allows me a little distance from my academic, personal, or professional life. I turn on some bluegrass, open up a recipe I haven't tried or still haven't perfected and just cook. I am almost always cooking for other people. When it's just for me I eat a lot of (badly) poached eggs on toast because eating is so communal--Eucharistic really. I hate putting tons of work into something that I have to enjoy without the added pleasure of good company

This picture was taken by Lauren shortly after I sent her a SOS text message on Saturday. A friend of mine has never had my dark chocolate apology truffles (thus named because I make them as an apology for being a vicious hell-beast when I get stressed out). I have been trying to perfect both the ganache and the chocolate shell for four years now, and still hadn't found a recipe that satisfied me. This recipe was intensely involved (48 hours, 57 ounces of dark chocolate, two cups of cream), but turned out splendidly.

Watching people sample these truffles over the past few days has been a gift. In the midst of two weeks full of personal disappointment, here was something small that I had done that was bringing intense enjoyment to people for whom I care deeply. Out of some cream, chocolate, and champagne I managed to craft something that made people pause during their busy lives and focus intensely on one small aspect of their day.

It's so simple.

***

Simplicity

A glass of wine. Some slices of roast chicken.
Springtime vegetables from the garden--radishes, fresh lettuce.

A pie from the last of the frozen rhubarb.
Birdsong through the open front door.
With you, everything is suddenly
so simple.

March

Our theme for this week: Hope

I love spring flowers.

Fall has always been my favorite season, but there's something about the flowers that come up in the springtime that makes me joyful. Daffodils and lilies have long been among my favorites. I love the exuberance of daffodils. I love their unapologetic brightness as they bloom together. They bloom so early in the spring and are so short lived that they are truly a blessing every single year.

Lilies are much the same. They bloom early in the spring, are relatively short-lived, and are bright and beautiful. However, lilies have the added bonus of Easter symbolism (lilies have long been a symbol of rebirth and renewal) coupled with the fact that they smell outstanding. Despite the fact that they're traditionally funeral flowers (and consequently, I've seen more of them connected with moments of loss and heartbreak than I ever wanted) I still love them with all of my heart.

Yet while these flowers have long been tied for my favorite, the longer I live in Minnesota the more deeply I fall in love with the pasque flower. This remarkable little flower lives on the prairies of Minnesota--a landscape to which I feel myself absolutely unequal. The prairie is not for the faint-hearted. It's miles and miles of nothing except for open spaces. Having grown up in the glacial drumlins of Wisconsin, I'm used to hills and trees. I find the prairie and its open spaces unsettling at best and utterly terrifying at worst. I hate the feeling of being surrounded by nothing. This is a hard landscape; a challenging place to live, to grow, to remain hopeful. But it is a landscape that is capable of breath-taking beauty--the kind of beauty I find in pasque flowers. They're among the first flowers to bloom on the prairie, blossoms often unfolding alongside unmelted snow. They survive brutal winters and come up in these small clumps of white and purple every spring. I am constantly amazed that something so beautiful can bloom again and again from a landscape so unforgiving. Unlike daffodils and lilies which a cultivated by human hands, pasque flowers are part of their environment. They've adapted to the cold and adversity of the prairie to become something which, every spring, both transcends and remains a part of the landscape.

***

March

The pasque flowers hidden beneath the earth
do not know that the forecast for this weekend

calls for another foot of fresh snow.
They know only that the soil is a fraction of a degree warmer,

that the ice is melting and seeping down to where

they are beginning to extend their delicate roots,

and that the sun is just a bit brighter.
They know only that in a few weeks
it will be time to break forward from the hard prairie grasses,
stretch their fuzzy heads to the first spring rains, and bloom.