Monday, December 11, 2006

Hole Empire


I've been listening to the title song from Kemper Crabb's The Vigil (music by Dave Marshall) lately and Bethany has picked up on some of the words like "Holy Empire." She tells me nothing is Holy but God so I had to explain something about God's holy empire which Hannah word-leaped to this Christmas carol she penned. Merry Christmas, and may you sepnhvnlesep.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

oh frabjous joy! callou! callay!

I'm holding in my hand the "it" that I've been pining for and I've been savoring every word. Brad (my husband, not to be confused with Brad the poetry editor) laughed at my absorption for I "already know what's in there." But I don't. Kimberly's introduction and Mick Silva's forward (both superbly written touchstones for why Relief exists), the layout and order of the content, the inside graphics and feel of the pages, and the majority of the poetry and fiction are all new to me. I truly am savoring every word and enjoying every minute (and I've only found one typo so far!). For those of you who don't get your copy before Thanksgiving, eat your heart out! And when you do, please post and tell me what you think.

(Title line from The Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll)

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

relief


I am so proud of everyone that worked on this issue: Kimberly and Ben, Heather, Brad, Mark, all our spouses who gave their blessings, the writers, for they gave us their best work, and for the support of the writing community at large, for they are creating the buzz and then putting their money into subscriptions. Then when I saw the cover that Ars Graphica created for us, I knew it would fly. It is good. What a relief.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Relief Press Release

The Master's Artist is running a series of interviews with the editors of Relief Journal starting Saturday, October 21, 2006. My interview is here, Kimberly and Heather's is here, Mark's is here, and Brad's is here.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Stone Pillows

Hannah went to bed with a rock last night. Bethany told me about it this morning. That’s how it is when you’re 18 months apart. The youngest tells everything. Hannah has been loading up her backpack with schoolyard rocks and lugging them home to show me—every day. This one has sparkles. That one writes in chalk. I toss them out the back door and the next day she raids the playground again.

When Bethany learned to walk, she also headed straight for the rocks. She still does and the smoother and bigger the rock, the greater the value. We can’t take a walk by the creek without stopping for every chunk of concrete strewn by the sidewalk and those black river rocks are more desirable than a teddy bear. The Japanese Gardens adjacent to the Houston Zoo was a favorite picnic spot where we would go to feed the magnificent orange and white Koi but Bethany wouldn’t let go of the smooth, dark stones to throw the bread. They come by it honestly enough, I suppose. I loved rocks, collected rocks, read books about rocks, dreamed of spending my life walking all up and down and over rocks.

I dined with an amethyst when Derek and Jemma had their wedding reception at the Houston Museum of Natural History. We danced around Tyrannosaurus Rex, threw rose petals under Pterosaur, ate cake with diamonds, emeralds, and a 2000-carat topaz in the darkened corridors of the gem display lit only by the fiber optic glow on crystals. But this was a cold and distant affection. I could only stare in awe.


Now I throw my daughter’s granite pieces out the back door and beg her to stop bringing them home. Somewhere along the paved asphalt of my adulthood I forgot what rock-cold smoothness felt like—the weight and heft in my fingers—the pleasure of holding a pebble worn to glass by water. I forgot the way granite glittered in the sun like a thousand minute rainbows and made me feel so rich, so wealthy. I have forgotten how to love a rock so much I’d want to sleep with it underneath my pillow. Or, like Jacob, use it as a pillow.

In Houston, I once had dinner with a NASA engineer and his wife. Their home was a typical, early 60’s architecture desperate for remodeling. I entered their spare living room strewn with a first-grader’s toys, devoid of decoration save one very tall display case with a glass front. Glass shelves sparkled and glowed with rock formations, fossilized Trilobite, asteroids, and jeweled minerals. The man, a geologist, had scoured the world for his collection. Some were Christmas gifts from his wife. One was from somewhere beyond this planet. I held it in my palm for a very long while, mesmerized. The permanence, the history, the physicality of the stone in my hand whispered a name.

If we ever forget what it is to be a child, the rocks and stones will cry out.

Monday, September 18, 2006

The art of finding lost trash

We arrived at the lake in the early afternoon when the sun was high and the air was still. The brackish water, lacking the strength of a wave, niggled bits of trash onto the sand like an old woman pushing a broom.

“It’s down about seven feet,” grunted the teen with a beer in his hand. Shirtless and sweating, his buddies sat on the bed of their rusty Ford. No use.

We unloaded the girls anyway. A change of scenery wouldn’t hurt. I eyed a man under the bridge as he stood in his skiff and threw a net over the side. Shrimp in this lake? The girls ran past me and dug their toes in the orange sand, oblivious to the sad state of an Oklahoma drought. They were squealing and running from one piece of trash to the next.

“Mom!” “Look!” “Treasure!”

So I did look, through the eyes of my child, and saw the treasures the lake coughed up on the sand. It took a few minutes to adjust my perspective since I’m a visionary kind of person; I see things the way they could be, ought to be. Looking for beauty in tarry, orange sand requires blocking out everything you hoped for. I had to focus on one patch at a time. Then I saw the bugs and all their secret holes. If I stood really still they came out like the sand crabs in Galveston. I stamped my feet and they scurried to the nearest tunnel.

The blackened driftwood, soggy string, and rusted metal plate knitted together into an artistic collage as my mind struggled to contain the images. I know artists to take found trash, mix mediums, and create beautiful sculptures and reliefs. But here was art presenting itself to me, if only I could peel away the hope for something better.

I’m learning this in other ways: When I critique an essay what is the basis for my evaluation? Is the glass half-empty or half-full? Can I rejoice in pain? Is God’s grace sufficient for me? Blessed am I who thirsts! For then I shall know the thirst of others.

Monday, August 28, 2006

latter rain

In the month since I’ve written a web-log, I have traveled to Santa Fe for The Glen; Hannah has started Kindergarten; and I have been to Chicago to help steer the first issue of Relief Journal to publication in November. It has been a fruitful month and full of promise. But still, it had not rained.

My eyes have calmed down to a manageable state and I found respite in the summer rains of the high desert of Santa Fe and the lake-misted weekend in Chicago. I shed tears when Hannah left for school (though she did not) and this morning we started back to Brad’s grueling law school routine. I have pondered over God’s pharmacy of spittled clay and bargain-priced eye salve, and readjusted to my fifth-grade phobia of being called “four-eyes” on the playground. Silly, I know, when all of you wear them too, but insecurities die hard.

For over forty days, Dallas had temperatures over 100 degrees. For forty days, and then some, it did not rain. The earth split open like a jigsaw puzzle glued to lycra. But at midnight, when I disembarked from the Chicago flight to Dallas last night, I saw the lightening in the western sky. The air hung heavy and for once I didn’t worry about tornadoes.

This morning, as Bethany and I took Hannah to Kindergarten, they stuck out their tongues to catch the mist. By ten, the sky had darkened, and then it rained. It’s a soft, slow rain that blankets the grass; it will not flood the bayous like a summer storm in Houston. Nor will it stop the sickly yellow leaves from fainting off the trees. But it is enough—enough to pull me out of an air-conditioned stupor and join the voices of a great multitude that sounds like rushing waters and peals of thunder: the Almighty reigns.

Friday, July 28, 2006

I Thirst

Heather, the associate editor at Relief Journal, recently observed that Christian poets really liked rain—a lot. Here in the west, we do too. And while an overused metaphor quickly becomes passé, a Texas cornfield could sure use about five hours worth of that passé metaphor.

Three months ago, I blithely wrote about “floppy-eared cornstalks” and the abundance of wildlife along our creek bed. I reveled in the mild spring and took long walks with the girls. The creek gurgled and my girls had tea parties in the verdant clover. These days, there isn’t enough water even for mosquitoes. The runnels are dry, the wildlife is gone, and the cornstalks across the road are bowing their knees in submission to a hot wind.

Three months ago, I blithely started down a new road as the cnf editor at Relief. I devoured submissions, trolled my favorite blogs, and then began reading the workshop submissions for The Glen, a Christian writing conference I’ll attend in Santa Fe, NM this next week. Thirsting for community and desiring to make a good impression, I stayed up late and read into the morning. One morning I woke up, and my eyes ached. They wouldn’t move. For two days I couldn’t wear my contacts and by the third day, I filled a year-old prescription for glasses. They didn’t help. After an eye exam, I discovered that age, and thirty-five plus years of contact wear, had taken their toll. I had “dry-eye” syndrome and it would never get better. I would have to learn to manage the symptoms of dryness.

Every day, as I put in various drops to lubricate my source of vision, I regret taking advantage of something so precious and valuable. Every day, I have to limit my reading and force my eyes to rest. On Sunday, my sister’s pastor mentioned an old friend in west Texas. He recently asked this third-generation Texan how the drought was affecting her crops. Instead of whining about the weather, this seasoned old soul responded, “Oh, it will rain again. It always has. It always will.”

Let there be rain. Let there be rain. Let there be rain.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

The Shadowland of Shibboleth


Xibolai. The seminary student was using it a lot and I felt pleased I could translate my favorite Chinese word. It means "Israelite" and sounded remarkably like my favorite Hebrew word—Shibboleth. You may have heard the word shibboleth. In modern usage, it refers to an entrenched belief or custom that defines a culture. Depending on how you pronounced it in Hebrew three thousand years ago (it meant growth or flow), well, it could have you killed.

The book of Judges tells the complex story of inter-tribal conflict between the outlaw Jepthah of Gilead and the men of Ephraim (all of them Israelites) that led to land grabbing and warfare. When the men of Ephraim tried to cross back into their land, the men of Gilead would force them to say the word Shibboleth. If they said Sibboleth (an ear of corn), there was no mercy.

Unfortunately, Xibolai (希伯来语) was one of only ten words I could translate during the sermon. So, for lack of anything else to do, I began computing. This July 4th weekend marks the sixth anniversary since I returned from a three year teaching stint in China. If I had continued my language studies and learned just one Chinese character per day, I would be literate in Chinese. If I continued learning at that pace for the next three years…. Look at it this way: a scholar knows at least 5,000 of the 10,000+ unique characters in the language and based on my computations, I’d be downright scholarly.

Sunday afternoon, I dusted off my language books and methodically penned the calligraphic strokes of my first word: (tone 3), which means woman, girl, daughter. I was so impressed with my ability that I decided to move on to zi (tone 3), which means infant; child; son. My calligraphy looked good to me and I moved on. The next word was hao (tone 3), which means good; right; excellent. Interesting, at least to my eye anyway, was that the composition of this character combined the strokes for woman and son to form the character for “good.” Hmmm. Turning the page, I rediscovered the word for peace, which is: an (tone 1). This character placed the strokes for “woman” under the strokes for “roof.”

Brad walked in about this time and I showed him my resurrected skills. He was my informal language coach in China and he used to shower me with kisses whenever I did well. I’m not sure why we quit our lessons, but I do remember being thoroughly frustrated by the tonality of the language. After a few serious faux pas, such as encouraging people to “eat night soil” instead of “eat more food,” I gave up. Kisses or no kisses, it was easier to communicate in English.

I mentioned my observation of the characters and how they reflected the shibboleths of the culture. If a son with a wife means “good,” and a wife under a roof means “peace,” then what would be two girls and a wife under a roof? My challenge was meant as a rhetorical question, a prompt for cheese that might elicit a witty answer like “love” or “happiness.” He looked at me for a brief moment and in his eyes shone the telling signs that I had made another classic faux pas. My husband exhaled (had he been holding his breath?) “It’s the word for adultery,” he said. “Don’t go trying to make up words in Chinese. It can’t be done. But you’ve done a very good job writing your characters.” And he kissed me.

(calligraphy work by He Zhizhang, Tang Dynasty poet)

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

In Father's Hands

They put him in the back of a nearby taxi and drove him to the hospital. That must have been the bravest taxi driver in all of China. Bruce with his shirt all bloodied, mumbling words in English; his friends beside him white as ghosts. Any taxi driver in his right mind would refuse service as a temporary ambulance. If the victim died, their spirit would forever haunt his car. But Bruce’s spirit would not remain in a Chinese taxi. He was mumbling words of forgiveness for his attacker, the mentally ill son of a family he knew. And perhaps, as the graying city landscape careened outside his vision, he prayed for his daughters—all five of them. It’s all in Father’s hands, he’d say.

Valorie discovered she was pregnant with their sixth daughter less than a month after Bruce died. She remained firm with the officials who encouraged her to go back to America. American rights were never uttered; she never spoke a word of complaint or asked for revenge. The locals were relieved that the international incident quieted so quickly and they let her stay. In the native dialect, she implored them to allow Bruce to be buried in the city. Even citizens were required to be cremated; there just wasn’t enough room to bury city people. But Valorie won their respect and Bruce was buried a taxi drive away. The girls made cards for the young man in prison. “We forgive you for stabbing our daddy,” they wrote in their little-girl scrawl. And they prayed for the son of their friends.

Valorie and the girls stayed in China. Local women from the state-run church helped her cook and clean their little apartment. She birthed daughter number six in the city hospital where Bruce had caught the last four babies in his hands as they came out. This time she went home alone to nurse and home school the girls and practice her Chinese calligraphy.

Simon began to call over the next several months. Bruce had mentored him for many years and it was the least Simon could do to honor his friend. Over time, the younger girls began to call him Baba. They married and, within a year, had daughter number seven.

I have pictures of Bruce and Valorie and their five towheaded little girls. After the service at the state-run church, the old grandmothers would touch the gold of the girls’ hair. A small man, Bruce would hold the girls on his knees and call them “arrows in his quiver.” He cried one morning, with his daughters in his lap, when the Chinese told him about their abortion laws. How do you tell a man with a pocket full of gold to throw it all away? I never met Simon, can’t even imagine the burden he has taken on to raise so many daughters in a culture that reveres sons.

Valorie sat on my couch in far north Dallas last week, nursing daughter number eight. Somewhere along the way I missed a newsletter, missed the news of this new little arrow. Giggles erupted from my own girls’ bedroom. There were ten little daughters in my apartment! It was Valorie’s first trip back in four years and she was driving north to Iowa. It was also the first trip back for the three youngest girls. Simon stayed in China. The American consulate didn’t believe he would return so they wouldn’t issue him a visa. Imagine that. The Chinese officials showed more grace to a widowed foreigner with six daughters than the American government could muster for a man with eight. But Valorie wouldn’t want me to say that. It’s all in Father’s hands, she’d say.



[Portrait of Wu Fu, Brigadier General of the Gansu Region. Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk. With an attached inscription in Chinese and Manchu, signed Liu Tongxun, Liu Lun, and 'Yu Mingzhong, dated Qianlong geng chen, 1760, inscribed, and with one seal of the Qianlong emperor, Qian Long Yu Lan Zhi Bao. www.wickimedia.org]

Friday, June 16, 2006

On Creative Nonfiction

Kimberly Culbertson, the Editor-in-chief at Relief Journal, has posted my ideas on what defines Creative Nonfiction. Here is a taste to whet your appetite:

Unfortunately, most people, even many writers, are clueless about what this new genre is, what it isn’t, and how to write it. You see, adding that word creative to the generic word nonfiction changes everything. Sifting through the many submissions in this category here at Relief Journal, it is clear that the misconceptions are rampant. I’ll leave the how to write question to others but, for this moment, I’d like to slice away those misconceptions and define the term.

Remember, submissions deadline is August 1 for the November print issue. I hope to see your piece in my editor's box for review.

Monday, June 05, 2006

Princess Pool Party



It was her birthday all day long and she ruled her subjects with a dimpled smile. If she could have anything, we asked, what would she want the most?

Roses. (She's like her mama, through and through.)

And to eat, we asked?

Pig ear. (She's like her baba, too.)

She got her roses - hot pink ones. But we fed the guests chicken wings and corn, grilled out by the pool while the girls built sand castles and swam like mermaids. Happy 5th birthday, Hannah!

Thursday, June 01, 2006

The Fifth Day


I was prepared for the suburbs. I was not prepared for far north Dallas. So far north, we have to pay extra money to the phone company for the privilege of dialing into Dallas. I knew there weren’t many trees here. It’s a flat land, good for ranching. The grass turns to straw in the summer for lack of rain. The sky is big, with a blue intensity that reminds me I am small.

The best I hoped for, in our price range for an apartment, was the ground floor with a patio and maybe, just maybe, a grassy area the girls could play in. I never expected trees, or water, or living things, other than fire ants and the neighbor’s dog. Who knew that Dallas had so many creeks and nature preserves? Or that this year’s spring weather would be the longest on record?

Our patio empties into a yard, which backs up to a creek with walking trails, a dense line of trees, and the kind of wildlife I remember as a kid. My girls can already identify the cardinal’s song, the blue jay, the rock dove, and the mockingbird. Last Fall, under a cloud of red and gold leaves, they learned the stutter of the red-headed woodpecker.

One morning after a hard rain, when the creek smelled of pear and wisteria blossoms, we watched a white crane fishing for minnows. His S-shaped neck dipped and he brought up a large gold one. Mr. and Mrs. Mallard prefer the bend of the creek near the pecan trees, though we have yet to see the rest of the family. There was a commotion in the trees last month when a young hawk stole a rabbit from the mouth of his brother hawk. Their wingspans are as long as Hannah. Last week, while the magnolia trees bloomed, we spotted an owl that screeches late at night.

Bandit, the raccoon ambles across our patio and raids the neighbor’s cat food. We’ve seen a ‘possom sleeping on a tree branch, rabbits still as statues while guarding their hole, and squirrels playing tag. Monarchs land on our arms, blue and green damselflies flirt around our feet and we’ve only seen one snake – a large one – in the rill near the myrtle trees. On Memorial Day, the four of us walked to the mossy end, where it runnels into the golf course, and we threw rocks into the shallows. We picked wildflowers: carpet strawberries, buttercups, dandelions, queen-anne’s-lace; and then we brought home chiggers.

They manifested on me the next day, and Brad came home with the angry red bumps last night. Luckily we sprayed the girls before our walk and they are fine, but for me, well, all the questions of the curse are on my mind. Just why are there mosquitoes, and fire ants, and venomous spiders that hide in my closet? Our little patch of Eden no longer feels so special. The weather is getting hot, the corn is wilting in the fields, and until I buy some good insect repellant, I am retreating into air-conditioned suburbia.

My friend Sherry, who raises llamas on the outskirts of Austin and contends with mountain cats raiding her chicken coops, will laugh at me. After all, neither of us really live in the forest. The city is always nipping at our heels, chasing the wildlife farther afield or swallowing it altogether. Who wants to live together with snakes and lions and biting ants? I’m not sure which is the bigger curse.

Sunday, May 28, 2006

I Remember


Thank you to all the men and women who have served, who continue to serve, and who are even thinking of serving this country so that Bethany can walk on free ground and Hannah can reach for the stars.

(Bethany's footprints, Hannah's fingerprints)

Thursday, May 25, 2006

The Round Table

La conference/Laurent Ferrari

There has been a lot of discussion recently among editors and writers trying to pinpoint just what to look for in a solid, print-worthy work. Ryan McDermott, editor of the online journal New Pantagruel, kind of started it last week when he asked the new editors at Relief Journal just what would float their boat to see in print. Trying to get a handle on the kind of Christian journal we were aiming for, he asked how we compared to Image. I responded with the following answer:

I am very familiar with Image, have attended two of their conferences (ten years apart) and will be attending (hopefully) The Glen this summer. I deeply respect Gregory Wolfe’s vision and leadership at its helm. After years of hard work and attention to excellence, Image has the clout and vitality we all aspire to. Absolutely I believe that their fiction and poetry are good. (I love reading Robert Cording and Thomas Lynch and of course Annie Dillard.) But we are not here to emulate Image, other than in quality of journalism.

As editors, we rely on writers to submit their very best work. But we look for more than just good writing. I look for the author’s ability to pull back the veil and reveal the holy. I hope to see the mundane, everyday occurences of life in fresh ways. I hope to walk away from an essay and not be able to forget it because it altered my thinking, opened a window, recast the way I see things. I look for poetic and creative construction. I look for evidence that God has influenced and informed this writer’s creative sensibilties - not through dogma or even intellectualism - but through tutelage of craftmanship.


Kimberly Culbertson, Founding Editor, and Heather von Doehren, Assistant Editor, are doing a fantastic job of steering the first issue to publication. Kimberly clarifies our goals with these words of guidance: Please understand that we are looking for solid literary fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry over didactic, “inspirational” literature. For those of you who are still being timid, stop pulling your punches. Please feel free to send us your edgier work. I am looking for authors who are able to write well rather than make a sloppy attempt at evangelism via the written word.

Now that Mark Bertrand has joined us on the editorial staff, he too, has weighed in here with his preferences.

Brad Fruhauff, Poetry Editor, is our most recent staff addition. He gives a call for "true" poetry that will both "'instruct and delight.'" Welcome, Brad, to Relief. And for a complete profile of all the hardworking editors at Relief, check us out at the Editor's Page.

How do we then define our preferences when some of us like "edgy," some like "reflective," some like "classical," some like "modern?" While we do strive to enlarge the boundaries for an emerging audience, in short, all of us appreciate well-crafted art. I like the fact that we can bring differing sensibilties to the table where we critique your work. You can rest assured, if you say it with excellence, your voice will be heard.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

The Wind Is Passing By


Brad abruptly pulled over to the side of the road, crushing waist-high, purple-headed thistles and a few scraggly Indian Blankets under the wheels of our van.

“Get out and pull it – see for yourself,” he chided.

I’d only asked if the crop we were passing was wheat. A yes or no answer would have satisfied my curiosity until the next time we passed a field growing with mysterious plants in perfect rows. Growing up in the city, I knew my garden plants. Living in Texas, I even knew my roadside wildflowers. But no matter how many car trips I’d taken across the Midwest, I still could only identify corn. Those floppy-eared stalks are hard to confuse. But the grains and low-growing vegetation were still mysteries of nature.

I got out of the car, careful to look for fire-ant mounds, and walked to the edge of the field. Glossy and tan, the stalks stood just past my knees, the long hair surrounding the kernels now visible at close range. They looked like the thin beards of old men, swaying in the wind. I had to yank hard to break one off its stem. Instead, the whole stalk came out of the ground with a clump of earth and my face flushed from the shame of thievery as I hurried to break it from its roots.
Back in the car, the girls squealed with delight. Hannah immediately smelled it, as she does everything, and declared it had no smell. Bethany waved it like a baton. I felt the fatness of the kernels and the rough shells that made my fingers stick and lose their way.

“So this is where bread comes from.”

I squeezed some of the kernels between my fingers and they turned into a pulpy, starchy mash. Brad said he hated harvesting wheat. He would itch like crazy as he walked through the fields in his hometown, the sickle rubbing blisters in his hand. I remembered the threshing floor for his village, just on the outskirts of his hometown. He had pointed it out during a winter visit when the snow dusted the dirt behind the mill.

“So if I dried this and crushed it, it would become flour?”

“It’s not that easy,” he said. He explained that after cutting it, you had to lay it on the dirt and dry it for a day or two, then walk on it to separate the kernels from the stalks. Then the thresher stood in the middle of the pile and threw the mess outward, with a pitchfork. If you did it right, the wind would catch the hulls and hairs and dirt and lay them in a circle around you. The heavier grain, now dried and separated, would travel further, forming an outer circle around the chaff.

The chaff pricked and itched and got in your sweaty clothes, rubbing you as you worked. The dust blew in your hair and eyes. Your shoulders ached from working the tools. Then you gathered up the outer band and pulled out the rocks before storing it in a bag. If you wanted, say, fifty pounds of flour, you removed the grain, picked out the smaller stones and washed off the mud and dirt. The kernels had to dry in the sun before you could take them to the miller. The miller would ask you, do you want it ground fine or coarse? And the miller would grind the kernels between the stones that had been there since the Qing dynasty.

The wind laid down the heads of the bearded ones as Brad steered the van back onto the road. Hannah tickled Bethany with the stalk of wheat as we drove south on the asphalt road in far north Dallas where the field became a suburb and the suburb became a city.

Saturday, May 20, 2006

Rock of Gibralter

Great news! J Mark Bertrand will be joining us over at Relief Journal as the new fiction editor. If you haven't seen him in action, check out his weblog or read his weekly posts at Master's Artist every Friday. The consummate "writer's writer," his insights, expertise, wit, and very lucid writing should put him at the top of your "favorites" list - right after me.

Friday, May 19, 2006

When The Trees Bow Down Their Heads

Ni Zan:Trees in Autumn Wind

Hannah is learning to read. Last week, she saw the word MOM on a commercial and read it out loud so I'll just say that was her first word (though she's been sounding things out for several months now.) Hannah is four and she's been able to identify the alphabet since she was two. She taught herself to write the letters and learned the sounds when she was three. Now she's putting it all together. She came to me the other day with paper in hand and asked me to write down a poem for her which began with this provocative line:

I love how the wind whispers.

Could she have started earlier? Yes. But at this stage, I'm more fond of watching things develop organically. I hope she'll approach all learning the same way - with enthusiasm and desire. She'll start Kindergarten in the Fall and face sixteen-plus years of schooling. Hopefully I can teach her good study habits and how to discipline her time so there's space to suck in whatever captures her fancy.

I've struggled some with the issue of home-schooling. I happen to me a strong advocate of it; it's just not for me. If we still lived in our old neighborhood in Houston, I would make the necessary sacrifices. But we don't. We live in a suburb (now a monetary sacrifice) that has the second highest rating in Texas and I am comfortable sending her to school. And glad. I am neither patient nor disciplined enough to tackle such a responsiblity. But I have given it some thought.

I recently read an article sent to me by my friend, Lisa Ohlen Harris. The article is a theological book review by Susan Wise Bauer, a well respected reviewer for "Books and Culture" magazine. She also happens to be writing a history of the world for W. W. Norton. Well. I'm impressed. Susan was home-schooled and co-wrote a book with her mother called The Well Trained Mind. She's a walking billboard for advocates of the movement. So are my friends, Scott and Julie Brister, who live in Austin. They have four daughters and have made home-schooling a priority in their family. They are almost mission-minded about it and it's bearing fruit. Their oldest was studying Latin and comparative philosophy at fifteen - and loving it. Each child plays an instrument, sings, dances, makes their own clothes, ... well, you get the picture.

As I send Hannah off to Kindergarten, I know I'll wonder. Should I have done it differently? Am I being too selfish? Is the world too harsh; are the teachers amoral; are the kids insensitive? Will she be scarred? Held back? Steered in the wrong direction? Maybe yes to all of the above. But if I don't have the passion to teach like Susan's mom or Juie Brister, I imagine worse things for my daughters. For now, we delight in reading stories "together" and picking out words that she can sound out. For now, I can write.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Neither You Nor I


There is an interview with Joan Didion in the current Paris Review. I’ve been reading it during our weekly trip to the bookstore where the girls listen to the sales clerk read stories in a sweet Pooh corner between the stacks. They make a craft at toddler-sized tables and eat miniature cookie wafers. I treat myself to a tall, decaf café mocha and grab books from racks and stacks as we pass by. I haven’t read much of the interview, though. I usually have to stop to cut and glue and ooh and ahh at all the right times, and I can’t afford to buy the journal. (Well, it’s the magazine or the coffee, I suppose.)

But I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Joan Didion has been catching my attention lately, anyway. Her latest book, written after the death of her husband, is titled The Year of Magical Thinking, and has recently won the 2005 National Book Award for Nonfiction. (It is also the next book I intend to read, and yes, I have bought it.) The interview begins with her ruminating about a study she read exploring the link between grammatical structure in our writing and Alzheimer’s disease. I also read about the study a few years back, and, as it did with Didion, it has haunted me ever since. I find myself analyzing my sentences and syntax, not for readability, but for signs of senility.

Having children late in life didn’t help. I had/have the classic “mommy brain” syndrome where I forget words, call my children by the wrong names, and put the milk in the pantry. My sister claims that children suck your brains dry while they’re gestating. Childbirth books blame it on fluctuating hormones. Social observers blame it on too much multi-tasking. I can remember my high school friends laughing behind their mother’s back or teasing them to their face for being “dumb” for just such behavior – proof that the syndrome doesn’t go away.


This is a scary thought. As a writer, I can’t afford to lose even one word, yet daily I struggle to remember words that once careened easily off the tongue. Words, and the ability to communicate, are my life. Floyd Skloot, brain damaged by a virus ten years prior, essays about this phenomenon in Gray Area: Thinking with a Damaged Brain, (In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction, edited by Lee Gutkind, 2005.)

“…I have become enamored of the idea that my brain has been insulted by a virus. I use it as motivation. There is a long tradition of avenging insults through duels or counterinsults, through litigation, through the public humiliation of the original insult. So I write….
“…. I have developed certain habits that enable me to work – a team of seconds…. I must be willing to write slowly, to skip or leave blank spaces where I cannot find words that I seek, compose in fragments and without an overall ordering principle or imposed form. I explore and make discoveries in my writing now, never quite sure where I am going, but willing to let things ride and discover later how they all fit together. Every time I finish an essay or poem or piece of fiction, it feels as though I have faced down the insult.”

The entire essay is a testament to his patience and skill. And he makes whining about “mommy brain” seem absurd. He gives me hope. Skloot is of the mind that his suffering and weaknesses have created a new mind, a new person. His triumph is that his disability changed him and his art. In becoming a “jotter of random thoughts . . . a writer of bursts, …” he slowed down, trained new areas of his brain and switched from writing fiction to writing essays. He appreciates his “off balance.” His tangential research into neurology and cognitive science helped him understand and accept what was happening; his art made it beautiful.

[ Dartmoor – de: Wollsack-Verwitterung; cappucino - Deborah Ripley ]

Friday, May 12, 2006

The Heavens Declare

If you haven't already done so, go to my "Friends" list to your right and click The Master's Artist for Friday's post. My friends Allison and J Mark have both written about an experience they had last Friday and writing about it has given us all a peek into infinity.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Who Has Seen The Wind?


Two nights ago, a tornado blew through my county and left three people dead. I never heard a thing. This is surprising because I wake up at the sound of wind. I monitor the color of the sky, when I can see it. When I can't, running ticker-tape warnings underneath a regularly scheduled program will send chills down my spine. Anyone who knows me well, knows I am terrified of tornadoes.

I grew up in a generation enamored with The Wizard of Oz. The scene with the farmhouse spinning out of control is as vivid now as the first time I watched it and felt Dorothy's horror. I also spent a lot of time in the Midwest while growing up. Springtime brought nightly siren alerts in Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas as my family scrambled into the communal basement shared by eight families on Grant Avenue. I've seen the sky turn that sickening green a dozen times and I still head for the nearest closet or culvert when it appears.

But fear of devastation landing on my head was not just in the physical realm. For fifteen years I was plagued with nightmares of tornadoes chasing me down. Sometimes they overtook me, lifted me up, and deposited me in an unknown place. Sometimes I outran them. Several times I confronted them in my dreams and defied them - I rebuked them. Those dreams were so vivid that twenty years later I can still recall them. More importantly, I began to notice a pattern. I would dream about a tornado and then, within months, my life would drastically change. A new direction. A move. The loss of a loved one. A divorce. An up-ending of my life that was as catastrophic as if my house had been leveled. Soon I began to fear the dreams more than I feared tornadoes.

In the eighties the dreams came fast and furious. By the end of 1990, my only child died. Six months later I divorced an already failing marriage. In that time, I ceased being a mother and a wife. I moved and got a job. I dropped out of grad school. I changed churches and made new friends who knew nothing about my tumultuous and painful past. I entered a desert of doubt and disbelief. Like Jacob, I wrestled and wandered before I returned. The last dream I remember, I did not run, I did not rebuke it, I stood still when the tornado approached and I held out my arms.

I crawled out of the culvert of my fears and accepted my past. I quit the sassy single scene and owned up to my brokenness. I'm sure I didn't seem as hip and cute as I wanted, but my life continued to change and evolve. In fact, it got crazier. I quit my job and spent three years teaching in China and then married a Chinese man. When we returned to the states, I gave birth to two babies. Life is as hard as it has ever been except I do not fear it. The winds still erode what I try to build, but I accept it and I remember, I'm building with rock.

(Thanks to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce for the picture titled: Tornado near the end of its life.)

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

A Pebble In My Shoe

It seems that changes to my template do not occur unless I publish a post. Perhaps there is a metaphor to life in there somewhere, as well.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Even the Rocks shall Cry Out


Before things were written in stone, there were pillars of stone: cairns, altars, mani stones, monoliths. One by one, the builder found stones and stacked them into a tower. Often the reason was known only to the builder. A meditative marker of time, of place, or experience of the holy. A mound of rough stones. A memory. A prayer.

Then others passing by found their way to a destination. They located themselves in time and space. They too remembered, and the history became shared. A community was born before things were written in stone.

Asleep on a stone, Jacob had a dream. He saw a stairway to heaven, a gate through time and space, a future and a hope. He took the stone pillow and stood it on end, then poured oil on it. As the oil glided down the crevasses and into the dirt, Jacob named the stone, the dirt and the oil, Bethel - House of God.

These posts are my stone pillars. Though I am tutored by the Master Builder, my cairns are still rather wobbly. Still, I like their effect against the barrenness of the land I live in.
(permission for photo granted by creative commons)