Buechner's Gift of Christmas Imagery

Some good friends gave me a book by Frederick Buechner entitled "Beyond Words." It is a sort of dictionary on themes, occasions, people... I was searching my bookshelf for something to read during my holiday travels and I decided to read the entry for "Christmas."

It has been a few months since I have cracked the cover on this particular book. And every time I do, I find that it is an excellent decision. Every thing I have read in this book is brilliant and insightful and at least 75% of the time the things I read in this book change my life.

Last night was one such incident. Buechner's words on Christmas were like none I had ever heard. A relief from the constant loop of carols on all the radio stations, relief from the bumper-to-bumper traffic in the Target parking lot, even relief from the pious rituals that I had been a part of since childhood. Here is an excerpt:

Christmas itself is by grace. It could never have survived our own blindness and depredations otherwise. It could never have happened otherwise. Perhaps it is the very wildness and strangeness of the grace that has led us to try to tame it. We have tried to make it habitable. We have roofed it and furnished it. We have reduced it to an occasion we feel at home with, at best a touching and beautiful occasion, at worst a trite and cloying one. But if the Christmas event is indeed--as a matter of cold, hard fact--all its cracked up to be, then even at best our efforts are misleading.

The Word became flesh. Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you could crush one-handed. Incarnation. It is not tame. It is not beautiful. It is uninhabitable terror. It is unthinkable darkness riven with unbearable light. Agonized laboring led to it, vast upheavals of intergalactic space, time split apart, a wrenching and tearing of the very sinews of reality itself. You can only cover your eyes and shudder before it, before this: "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God...who for us and for our salvation," as the Nicene Creed puts it, "came down from heaven."

"Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you could crush one-handed." This image literally made me exclaim aloud, "Whoa!" in my living room. This is something I can wrap my mind around. In fact, this image is something that my mind will not let go of. Heaven and incarnation and angels by the manger are more difficult to grasp, but "a skull you could crush one-handed" is vivid and real to me.

It makes me think of Annie Dillard's essay "Living Like Weasels." She locks eyes with a weasel in the woods and writes this of the encounter: "It emptied our lungs. It felled the forest, moved the fields, and drained the pond; the world dismantled and tumbled into the black hole of eyes. If you and I looked at each other that way, our skulls would split and drop to our shoulders. But we don't. We keep our skulls."

Apparently brain and skull imagery is very tangible for me and stays with me. I read Dillard's essay for the first time in high school and it hasn't left me since. I feel that the same will be true of Buechner's take on the Christmas story.

Handy Dandy

Yesterday I really was going to work. Honest. I had this time set aside and I was going to buckle down and get to writing my painfully boring educationally informative articles for Remilon. But I couldn't stop looking around my apartment at all the things that needed to be done. So, I decided to take matters into my own handy hands and here's what happened:

1. I installed a new doorknob on our inner door so that it will latch and keep out the frigid entryway air.
2. I hung our smoke detector. Sounds easy, right? But look at the size of the instructions for the smoke detector compared to the size of the instructions for the doorknob installation! Good grief. I absolutely did not read them. I wrote my own: Insert battery, push test button, nail onto wall.

3. The main event: I installed the handles on our cupboards that I have been going crazy without! We have been wedging our fingers on the sides of the drawers for months now to pry them open and I had just had enough. So, I did it!

Before:
During:
After:
Tada! I am super proud and so relieved to have them done. If you can't tell by my crazy drill-face. :)

The Bluest of Skies and the Grayest of Pigeons

This morning I walked to a new coffee shop to try to get some work done. And, as you can see, I ended up blogging instead. It's just that the sky was so perfectly blue and the pigeons so perfectly perched and gray that I had to write about it. I could tell it was one of those burst into song in a Disney movie sort of mornings--which is rare because I am SO not the morning person. But the sun was shining and the little brown sparrow-type birds were chirping and fluttering about and it was enough to make even me appreciative of rising early.

It's cold in Chicago, that's true. I nearly froze my fingers off trying to text during my morning stroll. And I had to grab onto people's fences a few times when I slipped on the icy sidewalks. (I think I'm going to carry rock salt in my purse and leave a trail of it on my normal walking routes...) But the sun is shining so it all seems much less brutal. It's nothing compared to months of gray and grueling Michigan winter misery. At least, not yet. Granted, we've only had winter weather for approximately one full week. But I'm hopeful. (Morning happiness? Winter optimism? Who is this girl?) It is warm and dry at the Knockbox Cafe and time for another dose of "isn't humanity beautiful?"

I was walking into the coffee shop and there was someone behind me so I held the door for him and then stood off to the side deciding what to get while he ordered. I soon learned that his name was Miguel and he had a deep and abiding love for grilled cheese sandwiches. He ordered about 6 things to go and kept saying things like "throw some of this in there. add some applesauce. how much are chips?" and then turned to me and said "what are you ordering?" I said I was looking at the zucchini walnut bread so he said "I'll buy her bread thing" to the barista. I was a little caught off guard and said "thanks so much!"

He said I was welcome and stuck out his hand for a shake. "I'm Miguel" he said "but you can call me Mickey." I introduced myself as well and he started talking about how there isn't enough kindness in the world and how he tries to be kind because otherwise "it's all just wickedness." He saw a man in a wheelchair asking for money and it made him sick that no one even looked at him. I wholeheartedly agreed and said "I know! I mean, even if you don't have anything to give him, how about a little acknowledgment that we're all human." Mickey replied "Yeah, you'd think human beings would be nicer to each other."

The barista brought out his sandwich, etc. and I said, "Mickey, it was nice to meet you. Thanks again." And chose the seat in the place that looked like it might have the most productive energy. Mickey walked out with a "take care" and I sat down, encouraged by our interaction and thankful for my breakfast.

It's just so gorgeous in here today! I think I'll be coming to this place more often. Ok, enough gushing. Off to work now... Pictures of my 2nd annual "first big snow" walk coming soon.

P.S., Grand Rapids, I Love You

I live in Chicago. And I love it. But I miss Grand Rapids so much. I miss all of my friends and the bright red autumn leaves and living within walking distance of Nantucket Bakery and The Sparrows coffee shop. I even miss the stupid drunk frat boys playing their guitars on the hoods of their cars at 3am. And the "resident" homeless man who shuffled around on the street outside of our apartment building. Summer is officially over only when he has changed from his cut-off jean shorts into his sweat pants. His name is Mark. He wants to fly south for the winter.

Grand Rapids will always hold some great memories for me. I recently was able to breeze through on my way from a wedding in Clare back to Chicago and I took about a million pictures and almost cried because I think autumn in Grand Rapids may be more beautiful than autumn anywhere else that I've ever been. And it's my favorite season. Here are a few photos from that trip to peruse before the snow starts to fall (ugh).

Winter Edges In

It is not yet winter. But I can feel its fingers wrapping around the city, preparing to overtake it. The air outside smells like a box of hats and scarves.

Every year when the weather turned cold my mother would pull the box of winter wear from the back of the closet and it always smelled the same. A mix of old dryer sheets and crumbled leaves, and the dust that settled from the wood stove. Unknowingly, this smell has become a tell-tale sign of winter for me. And maybe for everyone else in the city because I think they all pulled out their dusty coats on the same day and filled the air with the smell of the coming winter.

Most of the leaves have left the tree branches and been swallowed up by the street sweepers. (The street sweepers which are responsible for my first Chicago ticket because they failed to have the signs up in time for me to move my car! But this post is supposed to be calm and contemplative...so I'll save the ticket rant for another day.)

Snowflake decorations are up on the streetlights, candy canes in the neighbor's garden, Christmas music at the grocery store... And I'm trying to roll with the punches. I am generally an avid believer that Christmas does not exist until after Thanksgiving. But as I sit here sipping my eggnog latte (that I got for half price due to a holiday sale) I am starting to soften to the idea of Thanksgiving and Christmas going hand-in-hand. After all, it is "the holiday season." And yesterday I realized that we only have a month to get through the list of 30 Christmas movies--and yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie--so we are going to have to get started!

But I am still reluctant to pack away my pumpkins and autumn leaves. It feels like admitting defeat. Admitting that soon my beautiful crunchy leaves will be rotting under a frigid blanket of ice and snow. Maybe I'll just put Santa hats on the scarecrows and lobby for a holiday merger...

Love Affair with Humanity

Today, I realized that I am in love the human race. Or maybe today I admitted it to myself. Those of you who know me probably already know this about me. So, I suppose you can read the rest of this just to say "I told you so."

I like to pretend that I can't stand people and that they make me crazy and I don't want to have anything to do with their dysfunctional selves. But, the truth is, I need them. I need to remember that I'm not the only dysfunctional disaster. I need to remember that, though I may feel poor and disadvantaged, I have it relatively easy. I need to see the softness in an old man's eyes, or the ferocity in the face of a frustrated teenager. And I need to remember that we each have a little of all of that within ourselves.

For the past few weeks I have been working from home, writing for a website and I realized that I feel a little isolated. (It doesn't help that my apartment is half underground so it feels like I'm hunkering down in a bomb shelter.) I have been craving human interaction. The three dogs that live upstairs just don't quite cut it.

I need to look at faces that are not my own. Strange or familiar. Friendly or otherwise. Humanity is all at once heartwarming and infuriating. And it's hard for me to find it anything but beautiful. At least right now. I know I will have my moments and days when I am gloomy about the state of the world and getting down on this mess of humanity that I'm a part of. But for the record, humanity, I love you.

Brand new backdrop

I have been in Chicago for two full months now. It's high time I wrote something about it. Nothing too insightful today. Just a bit of love for Ukrainian Village, my wonderful neighbors, and the cat. Her name is Lucy. The cat and the neighbor. But only one of them circles my feet and rolls over so I can scratch her belly. Human-Lucy lives two doors down and cat-Lucy lives next to us with Mary/Maria. We have never been formally introduced and I think I hear her called something different every time. So I just say "Hello" and smile. There's also a Mary on the other side of us. Orientation was so confusing.

Our apartment is just about entirely put together and we have more space than we anticipated. I still feel like we're burrowing into a little mouse-nest but it is somehow cozier than it is cramped. And that's not just necessitated optimism talking. We have a working furnace now and the apartment seems to absorb all the things we need to find a place for. I just don't know if I'll ever find them again.

We rode our bike down to the lake shore a couple weeks ago and cruised around in the shadow of the Hancock building. I can see the Sears Tower while I'm getting groceries. Granted, it's four miles away...but, it's four miles away! I'm not sure if we'll ever get used to that. And I think that's ok. I'm counting on the excitement and charm of the new city to get me through the first winter.

Here are a few pictures of our neighborhood:

Thinking About Spring

"It is the first day because it has never been before and the last day because it will never be again. Be alive if you can all through this day today of your life." -Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life


I had my windows open today. It was an astonishing 74 degrees. I walked to the bank and there were dozens of people on the streets. Students sipping iced lattes, whistling construction workers, people asking for directions and dinner dates. I love the way cities come alive in the spring.

What is it about this season that seems to have us all twitterpated? Are we simply mimicking our friends in the animal kingdom? I wake up from a long, secluded winter and fall in love with humankind as though I had forgotten others existed. I want to roll in the new grass and dance down the sidewalks. It's like a fricking musical. And I wonder if any of this gloriousness would be possible without the dreaded winter.

I claim to hate winter. Strike that, I very much hate winter. (Though there is something breathtaking about the first snow of the season. Damn nature and her infinite beauty!) I do hate the frost-biting cold that makes your bones ache. I hate the gray dark days that make your soul ache. But I love the relief and the romance of spring. Would the changing of the seasons captivate me quite so much if I didn't feel like I had survived something?

We all come pouring out into the streets on days like this to congratulate each other. Shaking strangers hands, "We made it through another one!" Of course I can be thankful looking back...but I guess I need to learn to be more appreciative in the moment. Learn to forecast these positive outcomes and take the bitter trials for what they are.

Even so...I think the Midwest could tone it down a bit. I promise to appreciate the coming spring even if the depths of winter only plunge us to 20 or 30 degrees.

Love in the Movies

On Valentine's Day (I'm only a month late with this post...) Ed and I watched Sleepless in Seattle. I'm not sure if this is tradition, but it usually ends up happening. This year we watched all the special features. The Associate Producer/Writer, Delia Ephron, had a great quote:

"Once you've fallen in love, the only place you'll ever fall in love again is the movies."

She continued, "You go into a movie theater and you get to re-experience, through someone else's love affair on the screen, all the feelings you had when you first fell in love. And I think that's one of the wonderful things about going to the movies."

I'm trying to decide how much I agree with her statement. Movies have an undeniable power and influence in our lives--possibly the strongest of any medium. Movies combine the beauty of words, images, and music to create a complete experience for the viewer...


However, I believe that literature can have a similar power. We can experience falling in love again at the hand of Jane Austen or Henry James. And, as an added bonus, we can embellish the story with details from our own memory or imagination, making it that much more personal and intimate.

I also believe that we can recapture those first feelings of love with each other. When my husband does something sweet and thoughtful, it reminds me of all the reasons that I fell in love with him. And it's like falling in love all over again.

I guess love is just very versatile. Or maybe I'm just very lucky. We can experience love through books, music, and movies, which is fantastic, but it may not be necessary.

What is necessary: good men.

Not Bad for Ninety

Two weeks ago my great grandmother celebrated her 90th birthday.
We went to celebrate with her.

She was born Evart, Michigan and has lived in the same small, red brick farmhouse for the last 6 decades or so. She gave birth to five children. Over the years she has lost three of them. These last few years have been the most difficult. Margaret Hoffmeyer suffers from Alzheimer's disease. I think it may be self-defense. Mothers are not supposed to outlive their children. Let alone three children.

Thankfully, on her birthday, Grandma was having a good day. She is always able to remember my mother. On her birthday, she knew all of us. However, she couldn't wrap her mind around the fact that she was turning ninety.

"Well, you've got a cake," she noticed.
"Yes, it's for your birthday!" I said.
"January the 18th?" she asked.
"Yes. That's tomorrow!"
"How old do you think you are?" my mother asked.
Grandma made a slightly puzzled face and then hesitantly she said, "Eighty?"
We all giggled and my mom touched Grandma's elbow and said,
"You have to add ten more years."
Grandma's eyes grew wide with astonishment, "I'm ninety?!"
She thought it was hilarious


The room filled with laughter and we all gathered around to give Grandma a big birthday hug. She successfully extinguished the flames on her "9" and "0" candles and we all cheered. As my mother cut the cake, Grandma said softly, "the years just slip by, don't they."

Facebook Ads - What?!

Just wanted to share this picture with the world. It was one of the advertisements on my Facebook page under the heading "Trying to Conceive?" (Apparently Facebook thinks that because I'm married, I'm trying to conceive. But that's a different rant for a different day...)

What I want to know, Facebook, is where is this baby "squirting" from?!

Because last time I checked, I don't think that's how conception and birth work. But, since I don't plan to participate in those rituals and, therefore, haven't done my research, I could be wrong.

A Few Vague Resolutions

New Year's resolutions are mostly pointless. We list a hundred and they never make it very far out of the blocks. We are 13 days into the new year and half of America's resolutions fell by the wayside a week ago. We're all sitting on our sofas, gearing up for the next season of "Idol" and lamenting about the loss of our "spring break body" workout plan. We're eating Chunky Monkey. We're feeling guilty. And that is no way to start off a new year.

Jump back, America! Maybe keeping these resolutions isn't the point. Maybe it's enough just to take a little time for introspection. A little time to evaluate our lives and admit that there are things we could improve upon. The first step is admitting the problem, right? So maybe just making the resolutions makes us a success.

I'm not saying we should be purposeless blobs of calories who are more concerned about Simon's snappy comebacks than our own goals and aspirations...I'm just saying we can cut ourselves a little slack. Perhaps we should start having a "New Year's evaluation" instead of resolutions. (Though, that sounds more like a test and fills me with stress just thinking about it...)

We can come at this new year with all the determination in the world, but the fact is that life happens. Our lists are too long, our time is too short, and we are bound to end up discouraged. It's impossible to accomplish anything that way. What can we do?

Set more realistic goals.

Craft a small-ish list that includes short-term and long-term goals. Throw a couple freebies on there for yourself. "I will smile more" or "I will take out the trash sooner." These are just subjective enough to work! Even if you don't quite make it to some of your loftier goals, you can check something off the list and not feel like a total failure.

Add a few fun goals on there too. Some stop-and-smell-the-roses sort of things to keep you grounded. Like, "Once every few months I'm going to visit a puppy store, just to make myself smile" or "If I start getting too weighed down by stress this year, I am going to stop what I'm doing and skip all the way around the block." Who can be stressed skipping around the block? You look too hilaroius to worry about anything else.

My solution to the resolution nightmare is to make a series of very vague goals for myself to accomplish in the next 12 months. That way if I slack off for a few days, I don't beat myself up...but there is still a list for me to check. As a "Type A," I love to check off that list. Even if the task is "brush your teeth," if I can cross it off a list, it suddenly becomes greatly significant to me.

Here are my vague and forgiving goals for 2010 (in no particular order):



1. Blog more. (Success already--I'm blogging now!)

2. Write something of significance. Even if it is only significant to me or my close friends and family. (See, subjectivity is the key)

3. Make a conscious effort to add new artists to my iTunes library and new authors to my bookshelf.

4. Bring back words like "darling," "lovely," "brilliant," "charming," and "dear." I think they are, well, charming. Quaint. Fresh.

5. Read Anna Karenina. I've been meaning to for months. It will happen before 2011.

6. Finally figure out what all this health care mumbo-jumbo is and just what the hell is actually going on with our economy. (And I'm not asking for opinions, folks. I want facts.)

7. Get my degree this May. Before the snow melts I will take that stupid Environmental Science CLEP test and finally be rid of Spring Arbor University (except for the massive monthly withdrawal they will continue to make from my bank account. Ugh.)

8. Eat healthier--if we can afford it. And exercise--if I feel like it. I refuse to weigh myself unless my clothes don't fit. Who cares? I'll work out if I feel unhealthy. (For example, I could probably use a little cardio now and again...)

9. Continue to work on the screenplay that I was not inspired enough to finish for my undergrad degree. Maybe I'll start a new one, too. And write a short story. And some poetry. Basically, just get over my lazy self already and write something. Anything. Pen to paper.

10. Pay more attention. Half the time I don't write because I "have nothing to write about." That's a bunch of crap. There is so much material all around me. People are absolutely unpredictable and beauty is lurking everywhere. I just have to sneak up and catch it in the act.