CONTRIBUTOR BOOK REVIEW: Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Victor Hugo
Modern Library; New edition (October 8, 2002)

This story is as impressive and gothic as the building whose name it bears: a soaring classic tragedy not to be missed. Hugo is an author who can craft a story about the heart and soul of humanity, and while this one does not quite reach the heights that Les Miserables, no careful reader will leave it untouched.

Hugo’s primary strength, in the tradition of Jane Austen, is his characters. They are all full bodied people, internally consistent, yet capable of surprising one. Esmeralda, the gypsy girl, is a prime example of this. She is tender and compassionate, and yet has all the fluctuating passions and selfishness of an untutored teenage girl. Unlike many of Dickens’s unbelievably angelic heroines, wisdom and foolishness are both equally present in her, strength and weakness combined in the right proportions.

This work is not as powerful as Les Miserables simply because its theme is not as powerful. Les Miserables’s theme is grace and justice. In Hunchback, Hugo tackles the theme of idolatrous love by taking the most cherished of human loves, the love between a man and woman and the love between parent and child, and shows how they all can be twisted into a self-love that always results in the destruction of the self and often the destruction of the object of the love. He gives us a bereaved mother whose obsessive grief turns her love to hate, and a man who allows unvarnished lust under the name of love to lead him unwavering to damnation. Hugo skillfully juxtaposes these and other more subtle examples with striking examples of self-love, selfishness in all its degrees, to show that when love has fallen, it is indistinguishable from selfishness, and even from hate. Indeed, as portrayed in Hunchback, pure selfishness does not have nearly the same destructive power as twisted love. Readers of C.S. Lewis will find strong parallels between Hunchback and Lewis’s The Great Divorce and The Four Loves.

The book still has all of Hugo’s stylistic quirks that may make it tiresome to the modern reader. In particular, his habit of interrupting the story with essays on tangential topics can be tedious, and a reader may be forgiven for skimming or skipping over the chapters on the history of Paris, the history of architecture, and the interplay of the arts (although, once again, Hunchback does not attain the same, uh, level as Les Miserables; I doubt that any tangent in history can match Hugo’s detailed diatribe on the Parisian sewer system). Not that these are necessarily worthless in themselves, but they do drag down the story. In addition, there are some parts of the story that seem to be leading somewhere, notably that of alchemy, which never intercept the main plot and are not concluded, giving the book a slight unfinished feel. Perhaps Hugo intended them merely to add to the atmosphere of the story, which they do, but he develops them too much to leave them hanging as he does.

Regardless of these quibbles, it is still a work of great depth and power. Powerful because its theme calls on the reader to look into himself, and question the motivation behind his own loves. Hugo paints his characters so skillfully, laying bare their thoughts and motivations, that one can see fragments of oneself in them. The reader is offered through their tragedy a light into his own heart and a chance to root out a little more darkness.

Reviewed by: W.C. Long
W.C. Long spent his childhood in Botswana, handling snakes and scorpions with abandon. He is currently teaching his daughter the same pastimes on the Virginia coast.

(DASTARDLY) Break-in at Wazoo Farm

So, good scouts, brilliant Holmesian detectives, see if you can crack the case of the Dastardly Wazoo Break-in. The clues are AS FOLLOWS (ahem):

One: I realized only this morning that I had left the door to our back porch wide open. (So let me clarify. 'Twasn't a classic break in.) A sign (COME ON IN, FOOLS) was hanging on the doorknob, and the burglars clearly took note and felt duly welcome if not a little insulted.

Two: The following were removed from the house and vandalized: Large bag of unsalted peanuts. Left on deck: box of Trader Joe's Multigrain 0 transfat crackers-- meticulously emptied.

Three: The following damage was done: Pineapple scraps, etc., thrown in careless manner about floor. Bag of brown sugar, bags of rice flour desecrated.

Four: Burglars wore irremovable black masks.

You can't blame the burglars, as Martin said, and I agreed (thanks for pointing it out, chump)--indeed I was the one to blame. I! I took full responsibility and did the sweeping, the cleaning, and reported the crime to our local department. (It's a small town, and burglaries like this are big news.) When you publish the article in the paper, I said, Make sure you emphasize the burglary was actually my fault. The burglars actually did no wrong. Probably they had hungry kiddies at home.

This did not stop me from volubly calling the masked fellows a very rude name. The newspaper said they couldn't print that specific word, but they'd do their best with the rest of it and Gee wilikers, what a corker of a story this one was. I dare say, in the near future, there will be a sharp increase in people actually closing their doors at night.

All in all, I thank my lucky stars the chappies did not devour my sack of whole wheat pastry flour. And as Martin added, they left the Yingling beer alone. Thankfully we hadn't left a bottle opener in full view by the beer, or the robbers would have likely passed out cold on our deck steps and we'd be sad, sad, on a Friday night with pizza but no booze.

So take my advice, good people. Tonight, before you go to bed, for Pete's sake, shut your doors. And you'll have nothing to fear. It's all about education, about breaking the ignorance. This crime does not have to happen again!

Notes

Today I pitched a tent in the side yard and Merry and Elspeth and I took a picnic lunch and dropped sandwich crumbs and pineapple juice all over the inside of the tent. Then we lay on a blanket in the sun and read Mouse Soup while the tent blew away toward the street.

Tonight Martin and I went out together. (Since we don't have family living close by, we manage a date about once a quarter.) We drove down to the college and watched Guys and Dolls. I put my head on his shoulder and he held my hand, like we were students again. During the intermission we strolled to the Student Services building for a free bathroom. The night was clear and cool. I linked my arm through Martin's and said, The girls will some day leave our house. We should make sure we remain good friends. We should go out more.

Martin is downstairs mixing up a nightcap, so I'll excuse myself. Notes: Go out with husband more. Do silly things with the children like eating lunch in a tent. Life rushes by fast.

Hey, I'm An Elephant

Bobo and Cat T. (yes, these are really their names) visited me this morning while their dog Star went to the vet. Cat brought me a bottle filled with pink water and glitter. "Shake it!" she cried, and so I did. "How nice!" I told her, and set it on my windowsill.

Then I fixed them some poodles and cheese. "I just have to rinse the poodles," I told Cat.

"What?" she said, watching me rinse the contents of the colander. "You're joking, Aunt Kim."

"No, I eat poodles and cheese and peas twice a week. They're good for you." She gave me a concentrated stare, one corner of her mouth twitching but the other corner rutted in a frown.

"You're kidding, Aunt Kim," she repeated. "Right?"

"Right. I've never eaten a poodle," I assured her, and she went off to play while I finished fixing lunch.

The T. kids always, always eat macaroni and cheese with peas and ketchup at my house for lunch. We are creatures of habit, and I'd hate to disappoint. The loveliest things, I think, when you're a child, are the routine things, the things you know to expect and anticipate: love from your parents, a regular bath and bedtime, macaroni and cheese.

"On Good Friday, I get to serve," said Bobo, looking up from a bloodied pile of macaroni and cheese (the T. kids never skimp on the ketchup and just for them I keep an ungodly carton of Heinz from Sam's Club in my fridge door). Bobo, especially, is a class A ketchup consumer.

"That's great, Bobo."

He paused before helping himself to more poodles from the pot: "I'm an altar boy."

"Hey, Kim, look!" shouted Cat, who is sitting on my left. "I'm an elephant!"

For the remainder of lunch, Bobo played a game with empty yogurt cups and a rubber frog with Elspeth, and then we watched an black ant, who took up residence in our kitchen yesterday morning, crawl along the kitchen table. He finally dropped to the table and scooted under a piece of macaroni.

"Where's Ted?" the T. kids asked at intervals. I had told them the ant's name was Ted, and we should let Ted live at peace in the house. Watching Ted segued us into swapping riotous ant stories: my brother sitting in an ant hill, their baby father sitting in an ant hill in nothing but his diaper.

Right now Merry is singing Elephant a blessing "May God bless you and keep you. . ." she sings, and I dare say she is signing a cross on his pink forehead. After Elephant is tucked in and instructed not to move ("Do what I please," she tells him, "Not what you please!") Merry calls Cocoa on the telephone. She does Cocoa's voice as well. . .seems as if he's been in a meeting and has a broken leg. "Oh, of course, Cocoa! We would be delighted to pick you up!" she says. "Oh, that's terrible! They had a razor? They cut themselves with a razor? The children? Cocoa, that's TERRIBLE!"

(Cocoa now:) "Well, I have a late night. Pick me up at 30 o'clock."

Children. Honestly, they are the chlorophyll in my leaves. Non sequiturs abound. You can smell their imaginations. They are just so much FUN.

All Who Wander

All who wander are not lost.
--Tolkien's Lord of the Rings
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Sister, this is in reply to your question:

What was wrong with the church we were at?

Nothing. In fact, I'd strongly recommend it to anyone who arrives in town, is looking for a well-established, well-run church, and wants a good solid evangelical education for themselves and their children. The pastor gives outstanding, well-thought sermons. The choir is pleasant, the members are educated, intelligent, and kind.

So why, why, why, are we wandering again?

I'm not entirely sure, but I'll try to explain.

Martin and I have moved almost every year, and during our moves we have spent time in Episcopalian, Reformed, Southern Baptist, more liberal Baptist, and Presbyterian churches. We both grew up evangelicals, and Merry and Elspeth are baptized Episcopalians.

We both fell in love with the Episcopalian church in college. The liturgy articulated all that we wanted to but could not; it rooted us in history; it was inclusive of many; its rich symbolism and concept of Christians bringing the Kingdom of God here on earth all resonated deeply with us. The Episcopalian pillars made sense: Reason, Scripture, and Experience. The church calendar finally made Easter exciting, Christmas celebratory, and Eucharist was suddenly a real, substantial experience of God's grace.

So of course we looked for a good Episcopalian Church when we moved here, but did not find one.

Before we visited Quaker meeting, I had a talk with my parents. (All parents warn their children:All that glitters is not gold). They affirmed what I knew about church: no church is perfect (no community is perfect); you have involve yourself and give what you can. I know this, but I also acknowledge the great sense of restlessness I have experienced of late. Recently I've been relieved for an excuse to miss church; I haven't minded when Elspeth needs my attention and I can leave the service; I've gone to church out of a sense of duty rather than joy. Church is a discipline, yes, and has been for how many years? As long as I've been alive.

Now I'm an adult, and I have a feeling that this new sense of restlessness Martin and I are both experiencing is a good reason for us to journey forth. I've always been fairly content to follow in the footsteps of those before me, and to take my children to church every Sunday. It's just what's done. But WHY?

Listen, I feel like there's enough words and messages and sermons and praise songs in the files of my brain. I'm full up. As I sat in the Quaker Meeting, I suddenly pictured what I often feel happens when I sit in church: Words, words, words, banging at my brain, images begging me to feel, swells of music tangled up in reason and emotion. I sat in church a while ago and found peace not in the church or the songs or the sermon but in the awakening world I saw outside.

What do I miss in the church we've been going to?

A sense of mystery
Community unclouded by institutionalism
Mysticism
Silence

There is more to the journey for us. Our souls are crying for something else, and I feel we must follow. Will we end up being Quakers? Who knows?

Rock On, Friends

"So where are we going to church?" My parents, visiting for the weekend in a flurry of Trader Joe's bags and suitcases, wanted to go to church. We did, too. We just didn't know where.

We've been doing some more reading on the Quakers. The Inner Light dwells in everyone; humans all have an inherent potential for good. We listen in silence. We hear God in silence.

Quakers have marked history with their moral and spiritual courage. Richard Foster is a Quaker, as are many other insightful writers, contemporary and historical. Because Quaker missionaries believed in the presence of God in every person, they were among few outsiders who treated Native Americans with respect. They spoke out against slavery. They solidified the concept of conscientious objection. They suffered greatly.

I love everything about the Quakers, I told Martin, Except the suffering part. I admit: I voice my convictions strongly, but I do not want to suffer.

Simplicity. Silence. Social justice.

Rock on, Friends.

So Martin and I drove through a day so beautiful you could tongue the air and savor each taste of spring.

Thirty minutes and countless twisting curves later, we pulled into the parking lot of the Friends Meeting House. "During the week the meeting house is a yoga studio," I told my parents. Imm, hmm. I could tell my parents had their reservations. My mother, who is highly suspicious of any seed that might grow and bloom into self-absorption, was most hesitant about the idea of an hour spent in utter silence without the grounding of Scripture or other text.

The members of my family disappeared into the room of silence and I took the girls into the big sunny room across the hall. Merry was skeptical. "This isn't church," she said, looking around at the old easy chairs, the rows of books, the toys on the floor.

"We'll have our own church," I told her, hunting through the books on peace and Quakerism for a Bible. (Did see Richard Foster, by the way). Finally I located a row of Bibles and pulled one out. "It doesn't look as if there are any other kids here, though," I said. Elspeth toddled around finding bottles of carpet cleaner, a container of seashells, everything but the toys she was supposed to play with.

Merry sat down and I conducted "Jesus Loves Me." Maybe it was the odd formality of her chair and my waving my hands in time to the song, but she seemed to adjust immediately to the idea that she was the only person in Sunday School. I found some markers and some construction paper and we adjourned to the table, where I flipped through the Bible.

Let's see. Today, we'll talk about the parable of the lost sheep. I began to read the story out of the Bible until I realized it was King James' version. So I told Merry the story and followed the lost sheep with the parable of the lost coin. Merry wanted to know what the stories meant, and though I tried to explain what I had always been given to understand the meanings were, I did a bad job. Merry didn't seem to mind, and just then the oldest members of the Meeting entered the room.

In Welsh accents, they explained that Meeting didn't always start exactly on time. "It keeps getting later and later," they said. This resonated with me in a way they could never have predicted. I am fond of blaming my time challenges on my growing-up years in Kenya, where nothing ever started on time and nobody was ever late. I ran breathlessly to classes in college and slunk into endless church services, often taking a seat in the balcony or the back row.

The Welsh friends chatted with Merry and me for a few moments and then they plucked a book off a bookshelf for Merry. The parables were over, and the Quaker education was beginning. The book was about a bonnetted girl and a breeched boy in Nantucket. Early Quaker fry, and how they lived by the ocean.

Just then my mother, bastion of Christian education, entered and offered to watch the girls while I went into Meeting. The Welsh Friend had begun reading Merry the book and at her suggestion, Merry was drawing with markers while she read. Later Merry would choose a book about cats and the woman would read her that book, too. Nothing in the way of Christian education, as my mother would tell me later. Though God made cats, I said to my mother in a joking way. Half joking way.

The room was silent, of course, as I entered. I did not know whether to nod at people before I sat down and so I looked at the textured carpet instead. Eventually I shifted my gaze to the huge panel of windows that looked out to a blue sky, sunlight, the bare branches of warming trees outside. And then I closed my eyes.

I am unaccustomed to spending an hour of focused silence. At first my mind was filled with endless scraps, like a washing machine tumbling a load of clothes. Bang, bang, bang, the contents of my mind swirled and smashed against each other. Contained there were mostly scraps of Christian songs. . .and then after all this chaos, and after looking out the window and at the man with big bare feet sitting across the circle, I closed my eyes.

Slowly the chaos of my mind whittled itself down into one bare phrase, and that phrase began scrolling through my imagination. "THE WONDER OF EACH HOUR." That was it. FOR THE WONDER OF EACH HOUR.

After a while that phrase gave birth to an image. Mary was sitting at Jesus' feet and Martha was in a chaos of bustle behind them. Mary was listening to Jesus, taking in his words, and Jesus was affirming her listening. Martha, you are troubled with many things. But Mary has chosen the best thing. FOR THE WONDER OF EACH HOUR. FOR THE WONDER OF EACH HOUR.

Then two friends shook hands, and the hour was over. People began speaking.

In the space of the hour, my father had thought over and over Jesus' last meals before his death, and what those meals meant about community, suffering, and service. His reflections opened me to new ways of thinking about Jesus, his personhood, the way he would have wanted one last year with his friends before death.

Martin's mind, too, had struggled through the bustle of thoughts to grasp one phrase, from Julianne of Norwich: All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

For the wonder of each hour. Jesus eating with his friends. All shall be well.

After Meeting all the Friends wandered into the other room and we drank tea and ate pastry. One fellow who had just returned from Venezuela where he studied harp and sustainable agriculture plucked a beautiful melody on a colorful harp. The chap with bare feet let Elspeth toddle around with his flashlight while he explained his work to us--how he refurbishes bikes for the poor and works toward alternative, renewable transportation. Also there was talk of college English, the venerable Bede and the concept of time in the Middle Ages. . .The fellow put on tire-scrap sandals and took off on his recumbent bike. We watched him pedal down the road and then we piled back in our car and drove the long way back through the green hills.

I think we'll go back.

All shall be well.

Today; Deer; Canadian Hemlock

Today we planted forty Canadian Hemlock trees in our yard. Someday they will grow into a soft evergreen hedge.

Big, muddy holes. Tiny, feathery trees. Filthy hands, shovels caked with mud. Immm. Love it.

After planting: found out that deer love "browsing" Canadian Hemlock trees.

Maybe they will never grow into a soft evergreen hedge.

Tonight: sleeping with the window open. Earth smells like rain. We can hear the gurgling of the creek. We can hear the deer licking their lips. It all makes for dreams.

Canadian Hemlock is the state tree of Pennsylvania. They must grow beautifully here though we've never seen one. Deer eat them all to nubs.

Sweet dreams, good people. Deer: eat hearty.

Voices

Spotted on church marquis:

Why do you need a voice
When you have a verse?

I turned this over and over in my mind on the way to the grocery store. Though I couldn't quite make heads or tails of the saying, the words themselves scared up images of women oppressed by their fundamentalist husbands (an abuse present in every religion's expression of extreme fundamentalism). It made me angry with the anger stirred up by trite marquis slogans, blasphemous books written in the name of Christianity (often about "how to be a godly wife"), and politicians who support latent abuses of the poor and claim to pray. It makes me angry, good people, because I am a Christian.

Last night I looked up the Episcopal Church on the internet. My mother, who is a spiritual director in an Episcopal Church in Maryland, had let me know earlier that day: "And in other news: Episcopal Church Given Up Anglican Global South for Lent." The American Church is hurtling head-first toward a break with the Anglican south.

Have you been following these sad things? (If you haven't, briefly--the tension revolves around the Episcopal Church of America deciding to appoint of a gay Bishop (Gene Robinson), the general appointments of gay Bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions. This issue sparked what more conservative Episcopalians view as a matter of the authority of Scripture; the global south, and in general the worldwide Anglican Church, condemns the American E. Church's actions and a schism is imminent.)

I looked at websites from both sides, and I was deeply grieved. Both arguments are clouded over with contempt for the other. A schism, though inevitable, is tragic and has raked up the worst in everybody. Everybody. I don't care where you stand or what you think of the issues. Humility, grace, compassion--seem to be lacking on both sides.

(And here's a little glimpse from history that does not answer questions but makes me cautious to believe there are any answers: for years in our country slavery was sanctioned by Christians. Slaves, obey your masters. It was in the Bible. It is a verse. And slavery was so ingrained into the very fabric of our society that it seems not one church in the South spoke out against slavery in any substantial way during these years and years of gross injustice. History has judged the church.)

What will history say about this latest schism? Oh, it made me want to be done. Done, done, done with church.


So I took my grief over the Church, and I took the marquis post, which by now I had internalized into memory, and laid it before Martin. What do you think this means? I asked him.

It means, he said, that you don't need special revelation from God (a voice) to know what to do. All you need is the lasting revelation (scripture) to tell you what to do.

Ah, I see. God does not reveal herself/himself in any way other than through the Bible. That's rather glum, I told him. (Forget dynamic relationship; forget the surprise of nature; forget sacred words in other books and in the mouths of people).

I don't believe it. Not for one moment.

Outside the world is covered in a trembling mist of rain. Drops hang and shine on the swelling buds of the tree outside my window. A bird with a bright yellow beak ruffles the water out of his feathers. In his beak he holds a long twig, which he drops in his anxious desire to sing. And so he is singing out there in the rain, beak wide open, throat trembling with sound. And then he is gone.

Voices, voices, everywhere! I hear the voice of God in the rushing of the creek waters; I hear the songs of God in the gentle pattering of the rain. I see the face of God in my daughter, who is sitting beside me, drawing.

There is great mystery in life. The words of Jesus, the parables he told in the mystical tradition of storytelling--these do not give tidy answers. Jesus' stories, the answers he gave to searching people, the strange things he said about himself and the many things he never said about himself--Jesus confirms mystery.

I have questions, questions, questions. At one time their answerlessness would have bothered me. But it doesn't anymore. Live into the questions, Rilke said. Last night, Martin said: the questions themselves are lifegiving. Yes!

Answers--firm, inflexible answers--these often do more harm than good. They often leave little room for grace. Their solidness excludes many. Questions? When I am willing to ask you a question, I am opening myself to you in a vulnerable way. I am humbling myself before you. I am leaving room for discussion, for childlike wonder and exploration. When I ask a question, and then I am silent, then I can listen. Then, and only in silence, can I hear with real ears. If I ask a question as a matter of form or correctness but have already decided what the answer is, I will not hear what you have to say. Your stories will be lost in the roar of my own voice. And our relationship will be damaged as a result.

The older I grow, the fewer answers I know. I am not afraid of the ambiguity. And in the midst of all these questions, I know a few things for certain, and those few things are enough.

I am convinced with every particle of my being of this: God loves us, loves this world, loves every human and animal and unfurling life that lives here on this good earth.

And I know, as I know and love my own children: God is present, in mysterious and astounding ways. God is present in the bird outside my window. God's voice is everywhere.

Often I fill myself with the clamor of other things--worry, criticism, meaningless and meaningful pursuits both. But occasionally I will listen, and I will hear, not in words, not in verses, but deep within my imagination, an imagination which gives me eyes to see what is truly real.


Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.
--Rainer Marie Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

A Note on Pictures

Wondering where the pictures I keep posting came from? They are from our Arizona trip, early March 2007. Some of them were shot on the Hopi Reservation; some of them came from the Grand Canyon, and the most gorgeous came from Sadona. More about Arizona later, but now, enjoy these glimpses of an astonishing state.

These Flying, Beating Things

This morning the air was so warm and the day so bright I felt like beating my chest and screaming wildly into the blue sky.

I buckled the girls into the car, gave a little hop of ecstacy before I climbed behind the steering wheel. Then we drove into the country. The windows were down, country music cranked up, and I felt like I was seventeen. Since I lost my way to our destination (as usual), we had opportunity to enjoy the country even more. Our merriment was not dampened in the least by the manuveering we had to do in other people's driveways. There was nobody else on the road; the hills rolled all around us like greening ocean waves. . .the sky seemed to be whistling like Bing Crosby in "Brigadoon" and we were exploding with it all: IT'S ALMOST LIKE BEIN IN LOVE!

Our friend's house is situated on a green ridge with a thick bank of evergreens on one side. Every angle of their land has a stunning view down to a valley and then to more wooded hills; the wind rushes through the trees until you forget who you are in their music.

I love trees. In Arizona beneath a stunning blue sky, I actually stood against a tree, holding the bark in my hands in an embrace. The bark felt like the hardened skin of some mythical creature whose back I might climb on, who might at any moment jump into the air and take me sailing through the sky.

Our friends have a real corker of a tree, a huge weeping willow with an immense trunk forked close to the ground. "We decided if the tree ever dies then we'll have to move," said my friend. The tree stands in their yard like a silent grandfather. He has grown there for years, and the yard belongs to him.

We had a delightful visit; it was so pleasant to be in somebody else's home and enjoy the warmth that a good family generates into their own setting. We ate apple bread and the girls disappeared to pursuits of their own. We talked about books and that was warming, too. Books are like trees, and it's appropriate they are one and the same at origin; both are alive and both are present and living whether you are there to look at them or not.

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It was raining when we left. The ground smelled rich and the air was soft. As I rounded a corner to reach home, a doe galloped down the hill and stopped just short of our car. In the distance, when they are grazing bucolically on a hillside, deer look delicate. When one is charging down a slope toward your car, what impresses you are the muscles rippling through their body; their quivering force; the magnitude of their aliveness. With beating heart I watched the doe in the rearview mirror as she picked her way along the side of the road. In the mirror she looked small and gentle again.

As we pulled into our driveway, a cloud of blackbirds swelled up from our lawn to fill a huge maple.

These rushings, these risings, these liftings and beatings.

S P R I N G!

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I can't help but think of Gerard Manley Hopkin's wonderful poem, God's Grandeur:


The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs --
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

PEEVISH THINGS: Narcissitic people who talk about peevish things

I unwrapped the roots of my roses from their sodden newspaper, and then I set them to soak in the laundry tub.

Today is the day. Roses, welcome to Wazoo.

I gave Elspeth a cookie, strapped her into the backpack, grasped the all-purpose shovel we bought back in Dutch Country midUSA, and went to it. I dug the holes for the roses and then I went to digging a trench in our front yard for the hedge. I worked in close proximity to the street and I wondered what the drivers of the cars thought as they puffed exhaust in our direction.

PEEVISH THINGS: COTTAGE CHEESE, SMELL OF CANNED PEACHES, BRUSHING MY HAIR.

This is what drivers saw: Unkempt woman talking to herself as she thrusts a shovel into the wide expanse of a front lawn. Runny-nosed child high up on unbrushed woman's back eating a cookie, happily unaware of her disheveled appearance.

PEEVISH THINGS: YOUNG APARTMENT RESIDENTS UP THE STREET WHO SQUEAL THEIR TIRES AT STOP SIGN AND HONK AT ME WHEN I BEND OVER TO DIG IN FRONT FLOWERBEDS.

The residents of my neighborhood have probably drawn their own dire conclusions about my sanity already. I could feel drivers bulking last fall when I tromped out to the middle of our front lawn, armed with a wheelbarrow and piles of the Sunday newspaper. I was determined to kill enough sod for a cutting garden this summer. Wild-haired zinnias would take the place of plebeian grass! But then it was a windy day and the newspapers blew and fluttered as I scrambled for rocks to use as anchors. Merry and I scattered straw over this mess and then I covered the whole thing with a black pool tarp left behind by the previous owners of our big brick house.

It turns out that the tarp caught the sun in a blinding pool of light, and later that fall, in a fit of blindness, I ran outside and whipped off the tarp. So now, this spring, there is a faint circle in the grass as well as two long straw-newspaper graves. But mark my words, there will be zinnias.

PEEVISH THINGS: PRESCRIPTIVE BOOKS LIKE "MEN ARE FROM MARS. . ."; FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS; PEOPLE WHO MEASURE BEFORE THEY DIG.


Elspeth was still content with her cookie so we went on and began to dig a trench for the Canadian hemlocks, which are languishing in the basement like unwelcome guests. Time to be a good hostess, I thought, as I put my weight on the good old Dutch. Digging up thick sod with a toddler on your back is good exercise, let me tell you. I not only eyeballed the site for the hedge but I actually paced it out before I started digging.

Martin pulled up with Merry, back from preschool. He got out of the car. I expected some laud, but instead Martin looked critically at my trench and shook his head.

PEEVISH THINGS: PEOPLE WHO TELL ME I AM WRONG.

"That is entirely the wrong place for the hedge," he said. I swear he gets this fetish for measurement and accuracy from his father, who will go absolutely cross-eyed at something one thousandth of a millimeter askew on wall that would have never, ever bothered me in a million years. (This makes him a class A builder, electrician, plumber--a job is well done in his hands.)

Add to this that God gave Martin enormous feet that are each exactly one foot long, and you've got the kind of obsessive measurer that bewilders the rest of us eyeballers.

"Then you do it," I said. He looked at me in some exasperation.

PEEVISH THINGS: PEOPLE WHO SEND CHILDREN TO SCHOOL WITH GREEN STUFF COMING OUT THEIR NOSES.

"Did you have fun at preschool?" I asked Merry, unstrapping Elsepth from my back.

Martin was already plotting out another line for the hedge with bricks.

"Her teachers told me she had green stuff coming out her nose," he said.

One look at her handkerchief confirmed this.

"We should call the city," said Martin, "To make sure we're not about to dig up a gas line."

Okay, uncle, uncle.

Since the hemlocks were clearly not destined to make it into the ground, I piled the girls into the house.

I took a nap, and then Elspeth and I planted the roses. Of course I didn't read the directions correctly and I am convinced now, after looking at the directions again, that I planted them wrong.

PEEVISH THINGS: PEOPLE WHO WAIT AROUND FOR SOMEONE TO DO SOMETHING FOR THEM WHEN THEY CAN DO IT THEMSELVES.

Martin arrived home for dinner. I was flattened into a rocking chair. "I defrosted some ground turkey," I told him, "But I just don't know what to do with it."

After a delicious taco salad, I thanked Martin for dinner.

"Thank YOU," he said.

"For what?" I asked.

"For defrosting the turkey," he said.

"Any time." (Defrosting a tube of meat is hard work, but someone had to do it.)

PEEVISH THINGS: UNGRATEFUL PEOPLE.

Fine, then. Thank you, Martin, for your feet and for loving to cook. Thank you for revelling in the crinkle of paper as you open an instruction booklet.

Thank you, fine compulsive Dutch gardeners, for making a good shovel.

And I'll just take care of it now: thank you, all obsessive people who love the metric system. Where would we be without your glum but perfect measurements?

All is Right, All is Right: SPRING is COME

In less than an hour, SPRING will officially begin. I know it's wrong to capitalize the seasons, but in my intuitive opinion, SPRING deserves every single one of its letters celebrated. S P R I N G.

Today was the Sabbath of the winter of our sick week. Since Elspeth wailed every time I detached her from my hip, and since the sun filled our house like the smell of good cooking, I hatted and coated the girls and we went out.

We jolly well took our runny noses and went out!

In the sunlight the girls suddenly looked as pale as porcelain, and I realized how very housebound we have been of late. The sky was blue without cloud, the air was pristine as only springtime air can be, and the street was alive with the sounds of jackhammers. We paused long enough for Merry to study the gash in the road and the men in their fluorescent jackets.

Then we pushed through the snow-melt sogginess and continued on our way. As I walked, my insides, which have seemed like a small, comfortable, but dark hovel, started to expand. Each breath I took pushed at my shadowed corners, until soon the sun was warming a cathedral inside of me; light flooded through the windows and made colored patterns on the floor and walls of my spirit.

Ah, SPRING.

When we finally reached home, we found the world celebrating in small and jolly ways. A crocus, yellow as butter, opened her mouth in a long, relieved exhalation:


An earthworm basked in the young sunshine, a great long fleshy earthworm whom Merry threatened to pluck. I yelled jealously, "No, don't touch him!" (Every gardener guards her earthworms well).
Even Elspeth's spirits were improved, and she toddled contently around the sun room as I clicked holiday pictures. Maybe I should have been watching her more carefully, as

Elspeth further celebrated SPRING by sucking out much of the contents of Merry's paint container.

The label stipulated chokable parts but contained no information on the consequences of ingesting the paint itself, so I swiped her mouth and hoped for the best.

SPRING so imbibed me with good will and hunger that I actually cooked dinner instead of asking Martin for sustenance when he returned home. . .teriyaki chicken, rice, giddy stalks of bright green broccoli. Near the end of the extravaganza I near removed the tip of my finger on the edge of a tin can. As I wrapped my bloody finger in paper towels I questioned the virtue of cooking at all.

But dinner was delicious, my finger is wrapped safely, Elspeth is sleeping, Merry is receiving a lecture from her father, and SPRING has officially begun. All then is right with the world.

In Celebration of All That's Petty (and a Few Things That Aren't)

GOLD TOE SOCKS: AMAZON: (5 CUSTOMER REVIEWS)

This morning found Merry, Elspeth and me sorting through a sea of mismatched socks in time Chattanooga ChooChoo. Pardon me, boys. . .

Estranged socks drive my sister batty, so it's a good thing she doesn't live with the mountains of single socks that mark my failed attempts at organized laundry. I've taken to pairing socks that look somewhat alike (patterned and patterned, pink and pink, etc.); Merry and Elspeth certainly don't care.

She's gonna cry till I tell her that I'll never roam. . .

Look, when you're in college you vow NEVER to be taken over by the petty cares of the world. No siree-Bob, you're going to rise above the rat race scrambling around like idjits squeezing tubes of toothpaste from the end and separating laundry and sorting silverware into little sections in kitchen drawers. You're going to shake, rattle and roll the world, baby. There will be absolutely no time for folding fitted sheets or paying bills.

Hah! But now you're out of college and one night when you're all grown up, you catch yourself writing a review on an ice cream scoop on Amazon.com. What's the matter with you? Not rattled the world's teeth yet? You've settled for a moment of fame on Amazon as you wax eloquent on your favorite forged steel ice cream scoop. Very nice. There are your ideals, swirling down the drain.

And as you consider many things, such as what cycle to dry your new wrinkle-free pants on, and how many days elapse before Netflix will send you your new film, and whether or not the kid's sheets really need to be changed more than every month, you feel your nose quivering with the inevitable sprouting of whiskers. You've joined the rat race.

* * * *

But only occasionally am I the rat in the maze, sniffing out cheesey nibbles and reading the backs of boxes for sodium content and transfat. Other times I actually take the time to read books or listen to good poetry, like

Gary Soto. What a breath of fresh air his poems are! Martin read them out loud to me last night. Soto will blow the top off your head. His narratives, if you can use such a heavy term for his precise, spare language, are startling in their layered transcendence. That sounds like a bunch of gobbelty-gook, so just let me say: if you want to read some really terrific poetry and have a good time doing it, read Gary Soto.

And here's the rundown on NPR's weekend music. In the future, I'll let Martin guest write this feature since he's genius-musicman. But for now,

Check out The Magic Numbers, a brother-sister, brother-sister group from UK. If you want to kick back and enjoy yourself or if you've got a long drive, you'll love their easy-going 60's vibe. And their songs are diverse enough that you won't tire of them. I'm the kind of person who goes for a CD out of pure enjoyment, and I can see myself wearing out The Magic Numbers' jewelcase. Four to five stars.

Stuff your ears with cotton balls before you listen to Tina Dico. Dico channels an Alanis Morissette sound accompanied by all the self indulgence and pseudo poetry that makes me cringe. Apparently Dico's passed up Coldplay and U2 in her native Denmark--chalk it up to personal taste but I find her groaning sound grating and (as Martin says) her cliched "Long Goodbye" definitive of her music in general. One star.

In contrast, Cara Dillon's got a clear, lovely sound that will knock your socks off. This singer-songwriter from Ireland is a pure pleasure to listen to, not just for her unaffected voice but for her thoughtful lyrics (she writes about topics like immigration, etc.). Though I think she could stick with more of an unadorned acoustic sound instead of the distraction of occasional orchestral swells, I give her four stars.

Oh, and here's an up and coming artist you shouldn't miss. Merry. She's already got a selection of songs and her album cover. (Check out Uncle Luke who sings background).

Stuck in House but Not Glued to Roof

Merry dreaming: Yes, summer will come.

From the second-story office window I look down to the land far below, dull green in patches where the snow is melting. Swollen with brown snow melt, the creek furrows a flickering line between the yard and a thickly forested steep slope. A bare-limbed tree waves to me outside my window, where just a moment ago a pretty brown bird was spitting out a little song.

A few short weeks will pass, and suddenly I will look out my window and see green, green, green.

But for now, March is still wintry. The wee Canadian hemlocks and the roses with a mass of naked claw-like roots sleep snug in the basement. Elsepth is still sick and she sleeps much of the day congested and worn out in her crib. Merry is sniffly, Martin and I are still in our clothes from last night. We all seem to be waiting, and the waiting is not so bad. Martin and I have both had lots of time to work on our books, and it's comforting to type away side by side into the late hours of the night.

Yesterday we opened an unexpected box from my cousin in Virginia: packets and packets of Indian spices! Delightful! Cumin, coriander, paprika, whole cloves. Martin packed them gently into a basket. They are sleeping, too, promises of flavor explosions confined within their plastic packets, waiting to be ripped open, spilling out on lamb and potatoes and onions. Their time will come. The garden's time will come. My time will come.

Well, Elspeth is awake. Time to fasten her to my hip and find a sunny spot in the house.

When was summer? The greens and warmths and long days of summer start feeling like a dream right about now. . .

Last Note: But though we are sick and stuck at home, at least we didn't glue ourselves to the roof "like a beetle." (See STORY OF MAN GLUED TO ROOF). We should count ourselves as greatly fortunate.