Light will come again

Well, yes. I could be using this time to finish that review due on Friday. Or edit a poem. Or start brainstorming for the paper due Tuesday. And maybe I will do one of those things in a while.

But right now - right now I just came in out of the cold. And washed my face. And took down my hair. And slid into pajamas. And inside a blanket.

And that's why I'm writing.

***

In news of great import: I finished the Deathly Hallows. Yesterday. As in, the seventh, the last, the final book in the Harry Potter series. And I always thought they were overrated. Or uninteresting. Or too trendy. Or . . . something. And I thought the people who got excited about them were strange. Well.

Is it too weird that the end of Harry Potter pulled me out of my Eyeore complex enough to believe that things will be right in the end, that God is good and joy is true?

Yes. It made me pretty happy.

"Of house-elves and children's tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped."

Well said, Albus.

***

I've made my finals game plan. It's written in colored pencil and hung on the wall beside my desk. It's nice to have it out of my head. Plus I love scratching things off the list. Maybe too much. I just love study plans.

Only maybe I should call it "project plans." Because I have no finals this year. Nada. Just papers, and a presentation. And I like it, I like it lots. I'm the world's worst studier, and I'd much rather sit down and think and analyze and write than . . . study.

Oh yes - and the last GRE? It proved what I've always known: my right brain is abnormally large, and my left brain is the size of a shriveled pea. I got a very exciting score on the Verbal section, and a dismal - nay, abysmal - score on the Quantitative. But that's ok, because my field is English! Take that, mathematics, you have no power over me anymore.

Now. Time for poem revision (cue nerdy excitement), sleep, and finishing strong. Then Jan term: New Mexico ski slopes, good books, and knitting. You heard me right.

On our way home

Just got off the phone with little brother. I mean younger brother who is twice my size. He wants to go to Peru during spring break with Bama RUF. I told him about Miami. We chatted about movies (like The Full Monty which is oddly very good. I'll explain later) and the quiz I'm writing for tomorrow and he made me laugh, as always. It turns out we both have class til 5 tomorrow and neither of us are skipping.

But we'll both be home for supper. And I'm looking forward to that, to my family sitting together, and Jim's hilarious stories and Mom's random phrases that make Jim and me die with laughter and she doesn't know why, and seeing Dad happy and trading jokes with Jim.

Can you tell I'm ready for school to be over?

***
And that is why I'm sitting here in the last half hour before that class I really want to skip but am attending anyway, writing about how my brother's phone call made me happy when I should be writing about the plays of Calderon.

Yes, I am ready for a break. Not from friends. But I want to hang out with my family, and see Kait, and read Deathly Hallows and every Frederic Buechner book I can find. I read Godric this weekend (in the summer I read On the Road with the Archangel), and I love his stuff a lot.

"This much I will tell: what's lost is nothing to what's found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup."

You hold me glad

Tonight, I saw a fat and fluffy raccoon scamper over the sidewalk. The sunset spread a sheet of red-gold light against the evening clouds, and the air was cold and smelled like leaves and pine needles.

Everywhere, beauty.

***

I should be writing a sestina, but instead I want to tell you that the past several days have been better, OCD-wise. Quite a bit better. I am able to slow down my mind and trust God a little bit more and realize that this is my battle to fight. So I've been fighting.

So far I have hesitated to write directly about that on this blog. I'm not sure why. But anyway, I bear the official diagnosis of "Obsessive Compulsive Disorder," only I don't wash my hands a million times a day (um, that's when I was a six year old hypchondriac. Yeah). Anyway, I've been astonished and, well, relieved, to learn that so many other people also struggle with it. With me, it takes the form of (ahem) "recurrent, unwanted thoughts." So instead of having to check the actual door 30 times to make sure it's locked (which is what some people do), I have to go back and check the door in my mind. And that sounds really abstract. Sorry, folks.

But the point is, you can do stuff to make it better and things have been better this week. And I am grateful.

***

In other news, I feel subdued, but that's ok. I want to go and sit with people who are my friends and just be quiet and smile and listen. To just - be. To not plan or make conversation or exert energy of any type. Is that ok?

I took an hour and a half dreaming nap yesterday. At 4 o'clock of the afternoon. It was wonderful.

I want to be home and baking. Yes? Yes.

Acquired music from Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack by Karen O and the Kids. It's lovely stuff.

Took me so many miles and they never wore out

my worried shoes

I looked all around and saw the sun shining down

took off my worried shoes

Breathing

Here in college, my cooking creativity has grown exponentially. For better, or (often) for worse. The better includes things like learning how to boil pasta in the microwave, or using whipped cream cheese on top of my beans-rice-salsa in the absence of sour cream. Things like stirring in some peanut butter with my oatmeal (divine. And comforting).

Sometimes, though, things go too far. There are only so many things you can change before your creation morphs from yummy with a twist to some food-version of Frankenstein's monster. And that's what happened this morning. One element too many, and my morning oatmeal turned into a peanut butter-cocoa-brown sugar-applesauce bomb. I blame the applesauce. And myself.

***

Of note:

*I went to Nashville this weekend with Anna and we stayed at her sweet grandmother's house. Then we walked around Vanderbilt and the ginkgo trees there captured our hearts. I've got some serious university infatuation going on.

*In a poetry thesis meeting, Dr. J. and I were talking about my stuffs, and I expressed the fear that my poems are too serious. See, they tend to come out sometimes more sad or cynical than I would like. I mean, I try to fight my pessimism, ya know? And I'd like to write stuff that reflects hope and redemption. But you can't just sit down and say "I'm going to make it turn out this way," or it comes out forced. So I asked him how to deal the fact that I'm not going to write cheery stuff, but I also don't want to give in to full-out cynicism. He smiled. "Just accept it with a whimsical smile," he said.

Strangely, that has helped.

*Grad school update: GRE fun again next week! I'm not studying any math this time. Ha! Personal statement is written and enduring the scrutinizing eagle eyes of respected professors. I'm trying not to dream too much. It's hard.

*Exciting: I've long been obsessed with this band called The Format. I mean, I love them. A lot (even the "Does your cat have a moustache" song, and that's just not a comfortable image). Only problem is they split up a year or two ago, so no obsessively following their tour dates and waiting for them to come here. Good news, though: one of the guys has formed another band, called Fun, and I like them, I like them much.

*In other strange news, I forgot to eat dinner last Thursday. This testifies to my busy-ness because, as most know, I have no hunger tolerance. Feed me. Feed me now. That's my motto. When I don't care about food, my world is upside down. All that to say - last week was insane.

This week? This week I have time to lie on the bed and read Albion's Seed and write blog posts.

*Last Tuesday I watched Shane for the very first time. He's beautiful.

Shane! Come back, Shane.

I turn my camera on

Seriously, children. I was useless today after 3 pm. I plugged some music into my ear and ambled around for a while, but dragged myself back before it turned into a proper walk. Then I went to the beauty of Chris Thile playing with the ASO and all I could do was smile really big and bask.

What has happened, I would like to know, that I wake up at 2 am and stay that way for the next two hours?

And why is it that when I have been trying to work really, really hard and get Lots of Stuff done so I can relax for a bit, that I crash and find myself incapable of doing anything but browsing Anthropologie and searching for the perfect pair of grey pumps?

[Speaking of which, let me introduce you to the latest obsession, also destined to be a serious relationship - Academic Chic. 3 female grad students and their gorgeous, creative, and inexpensive fashion. I love.]

Usually the crash coincides with an urgent desire to blog. And here I am.

***

In other news, my sweet parents decided, semi-spontaneously, to sojourn up to Townsend, Tennessee. Explanation. Townsend is the stuff of my childhood. I grew up going to Cades Cove and having our photo taken by the same golden tree each year. We usually stayed at one of the wonderful Pioneer Cabins, which has grassy meadows and a pond and goats (and the guy who played Birdseye Johnson in the television series of Christy. He is a former accountant. No lie). So the Cades Cove/Townsend area is one of my very favorite places on earth and I haven't been in four long years. That's where I'll be this weekend. I have three objectives:

1. Finish the Half-Blood Prince (why did I deprive myself of the sweet addiction of Harry Potter for so long?). Repress all consciousness of school until Sunday afternoon.

2. Sit by the river on the Abram's Falls trail.

3. Eat Bears in the Snow at the Pancake Pantry.

I am a simple girl. No, not that kind of simple.

Next time on your favorite (cough) blog: The exquisite mastery of Where the Wild Things Are. I love it. I love it so. much. It takes the themes of the book - the difficulty of living in relationship, the desire to go wild and live without restraint, and the isolation that brings - and takes it all really, really deep. It is visually beautiful and perfect and hilarious and aching and I want to watch it a million times over. Yes, it is my new Big Fish, my new Lars and the Real Girl. And . . . it has miles to go before DVD release. Dang it.

The thing with feathers

Let me just say that when I started this blog o'mine and subtitled it "a catalogue of mercies" - it wasn't because my life was particularly full of sweetness and light.

I gave it that name because it was a huge effort, a conscious, counterintuitive, nanosecond-by-nanosecond effort, to see the good in life. So I tried to start by listing little things, things like the June sunlight at 7 am, or a cinnamon scone, or a friend's letter written in green ink.

Well. Be careful when you go titling something "a catalogue of mercies," because that's just what it'll become. I know I do a lot of whining, but the year and something since I started this has been chock full of unexpected good things. I'm grateful. So I'll list some more.

* The RUF retreat this past weekend. The girls who rode in my car are wonderful in every way, and I cannot rave enough about them. Or the weekend itself. My freshman year (at the same lakehouse), only one upperclassman talked to me. This year, we all talked and laughed together and there were no cliques and community is beautiful, isn't it.

* During tutoring tonight, I spent an hour and half with three freshmen athletes, explicating an Auden poem. By the end of the time, I was jumping around the cubicle frantically and writing on the white board and exclaiming things like, "And HERE is where he argues that Virgil totally fails!" It was really fun. And I'm a nerd.

* Google Calendar. My latest obsession, destined to be lasting. I love it so much. I can make lists! I can see my 4-day agenda! I can view my life in month, week or day mode! I can make events - and tasks!

* In other news, I love my roommate. Her name is Anna too! On our door there is a sign that says "Anna." It makes me smile. Every night we talk for a really long time and I can be my own neurotic, dorky self around her and she just laughs and still loves me. Also we have the exact same thoughts and sometimes communicate telepathically. I love being a clone.

Speaking of which, it's time for our nightly ramble of conversation. Good night, world.

Counting: My life in numbers

1. Things are still not where I'd like them to be, but I recently realized that God's goodness is much more real to me than it was two years ago. And He's really, really patient. Good thing because I'm stubborn. 

2. I took the GRE this morning, and did not die. Not as well as I hoped, not as badly as I feared. Next step: application essay. 

3. Residence Life, always in tune with the needs of students, bought two sets of cookware that 

can be "checked out" by all comers in the RL office.  I think that's gross.  

4. Last Sunday night, it was almost 11 and my suitemate and I had degenerated into nonsensical phrases and raucous laughter. All the sudden the conversation turned to Lamb Chop's Play Along. I loved Lamb Chop. I identified with her so much, probably because she was selfish and sort of irritating. Anyway, 11 pm = prime impulse buy time, so come Tuesday I picked up this in the mail:

Yes, I have my very own Lamb Chop puppet now, and she's GREAT. Last night we spent more time than I will disclose here playing with her and taking pictures. Look for a Lamb Chop photo shoot coming up soon. 

"I make de bes' picnic! Ham samiches, peanut buttah and jelly samiches . . ." Oh the memories.

5. Why yes, I am a senior in college. Why do you ask? 

6.  If I have so much to do, then why I am writing blog posts and eating lollipops and watching Shall We Dance, yes, all at the same time. Why not go write that quiz for tomorrow? Sigh, ok. After all, I am skipping that awful, terrible, really bad Spanish class that I do believe is slowly killing off our brain cells and turning us into zombies who can help the Profesora in her nefarious quest to take over the world. 

But maybe that's just me.