What book shall I bring to the UK? I've been hashing out my options and I'm just as, well, overwhelmed as ever. There are so many good books, how can I choose the one to accompany me on all of my upcoming adventures? I was discussing this over dinner with my family last night. We've been eating out on the deck since the weather is so nice, especially in the evenings, and the air is quiet enough to carry its armful of jasmine scent over to us (we have jasmine vines intertwining the deck rails as well as honey-suckle, which the hummingbird enjoys). I like how we always pull out a table cloth first, before setting the table.

But anyway, back to the books. Lewis' Space Trilogy? George MacDonald's two-part series about--what was it, the Fisherman's Wife? Howard's End or Marcel Proust's Swann's Way? A Faulkner book might be good, since that requires at least two readings in order to make any sense of it; that would be efficient. What about a collection of short stories, such as those by my beloved Eudora Welty or some by Flannery O'Connor or Jeffrey Archer? Shall I give Walker Percy another try? I didn't much like his Last Gentleman, but perhaps The Moviegoer is better. What about a page-turner by Dorothy L. Sayers? I want something that will hold my interest, but not hold it too much and tempt me to read when I should be experiencing the culture or chatting with people; something I haven't read before but something that will be comforting and familiar nevertheless. Goodness. Something like Lanterns on the Levee perhaps?

As long as I'm avoiding the rest of my sewing projects, I'll type out a list of what I'm packing for my trip to the UK. I cannot wait to try packing it up completely, just to see how everything fits.

Working Attire:

• green twills (for those heavy-duty days of working amid briar patches)
• navy workout pants (which don't make noise when I walk and which dry out quickly; good for those days in the mud)
• gym shorts (also serve as jammies)
• 2 tee-shirts (also serve as jammies)
• 2 tanks (to facilitate better tan lines since I don't want a really dark farmer's tan for Kris's wedding)
• 3 pairs of socks
• sneakers
• wellies (big and bulky but necessary; at least I can pack squishable things within them)
• jacket or hoodie (the North country especially gets chilly)

Touring Attire:

• red skirt
• brown tank
• black tank
• blue knit dress
• brown shrug (this can be wadded up in my day bag and retrieved for those chillier times or those times in a cathedral)
• ivory cardigan
• 3-4 scarves (an absolute must, in my opinion)
• tie-up shoes (these served me well last summer as they are comfortable and hardly take up any room in my bag)

Then those extras:

• disposable rain poncho (yes, giving up style for utility)
• swimmer's towel (tiny and unsatisfying but practical)
• bathing suit (for those beautiful clear lakes in the Lake District)
• undergarments (six total...and that's as much detail as I'll go into)
• toiletries, consisting of deodorant, contact lens solution and case, 2 pairs of extra contacts, 2 razors, and SPF 50 sunscreen, tweezers, bobby pins and hair bands, and a few other things
• Advil Liquigels
• electric plug adapter and voltage converter
• camera battery charger (the only thing we need a converter for, darn it)

And for my day bag:

• travel toothpaste and toothbrush
• travel Bible
• Complete Works of Shakespeare (as this uses about 5 pt. font, it's quite tiny)
• camera (holds around 1000 pictures, so that should do for all three of us)
• journal/sketch book
• fun read
• water bottle
• flip flops (for those hostel showers and some casual touring days)

Meagan, LeeAnn, and I have divided up the toiletries so that we pack as efficiently as possible. That's why I have not listed such things as shampoo or laundry detergent (we'll be washing out our clothes quite a bit!)

I may have to update this list once I check how I'm doing for space, but when I packed a trial run a few months ago, everything fit, and since then I've pared down the list even more. How's all that for 7 weeks?

of sewing and birds

Well, there it is, the biggest task awaiting my return home: sewing my bridesmaid dress for Kristen's wedding. I leave for the UK in less than two weeks and I'll return with only a week to spare before the event, so I must get this done now. At least I've already done the hardest part of the whole dressmaking process, fitting the pattern and making a muslin mock-up, but somehow it's still daunting indeed. I am particular about my seam finishes--the inside must look as neat as the outside and the dress must not require much fidgeting to look right once completed. In fact it must require very little because I'll have better things to think of during that time.

Then I still have a bit of sewing for the England trip. I've made a simple knit dress for easy traveling (knit doesn't wrinkle much)--a pattern I've drafted all by myself and made with only one yard of fabric: a whole dress with only one yard! I love those projects which use up every scrap so that, once the project is completed, there's nothing left to store. I'll need to finish up my day bag, an over-the-shoulder type big enough to hold my journal/sketch book, travel Bible, and daily baguette and cheese and water bottle (reusable, of course), yet still inconspicuous and easy to maneuver through the crowded Tube stations and trains. And then I'm toying with the idea of making a wide-brimmed hat. One made out of fabric could be stuffed into my backpack well enough, and hats are so good for protecting the face, neck, shoulders, and hair from the sun. But that won't be high on my priority list. Last I just have to replace a kinked zipper in one of my beloved skirts. Oh yes, and I need to sew buttons on one of my cardigans, too. I guess there's more to do than I thought.

As I write, a bright red cardinal keeps alighting on my room's window sills--he likes both of them. He hops around, checking the view for only a second or two before diving straight down. He looks like he's falling. I hope that I can catch a picture of him. Perhaps he's scoping out a good place for a nest? Or is nesting season already over now?

I always look forward to returning home from school, but moving back in comes with its hassles, too. Where do I stash my year's new supplies of books? My books and I have talked and toiled together, so I cannot give them up, but my shelves are filled. My return, therefore, usually entails some hefty organization. This year I cleared out the top of my closet which held my notebooks from grade school, high school, and college, as well as a lifetime's worth of letters and birthday wishes, childhood drawings, oh, and other things, making room for all the new.

I love the sunlight streaming through my white curtains. And notice my nightstand? My brass bed was handed down to me from Mom

and Dad; my Dad painted it for me.

This is my little sitting area. I found the bentwood rocker at someone's curbside on bulk pick up day (my favorite day in the neighborhood). When I went back to pick it up with the car (it was a neighborhood a long ways away from my own), its little legs were sticking up out of the trashcan. I re-upholstered it and Dad reinforced it. It was my first piece of furniture. That little copper bar beside the chair is my doorstop so that Reg can wander in and out at his leisure.

Here are my wibbly wobbly bookshelves. Sometimes the doors fall off in my hand and the drawers are hard to open, but I love the storage it provides for my books, teacups, pictures, hat stands, and music. Off to the side is my rather buxom dressmaker's dummy. I still need to sew a cover for her so that she's my size.

But thank you for stopping by--always glad to have visitors.

Yesterday evening I returned from a weekend in Culpeper, Virginia with Kris. Data collection (her job for the Click It or Ticket campaign in which she stands on street corners and counts how many drivers and passengers are wearing seatbelts versus not) takes her on many weekend trips across Virginia, so whenever I'm in town, I like to accompany her.

So yes, I'd like to live in Orange County eventually. It's beautiful with its wide green lawns and hills contained with dark brown, black, or white 3-plank fences, the lovely warm bovine odor, and horses and feral cats in abundance. Isn't it soul-freeing when your eye is allowed to wander, unchecked by development or industrial progress? It's restful.

I met the feline love-of-my-life in Orange. His name is Triscuit because he's the color of Wheat-Thins, only "Wheat-Thin" is not really an adequate name. I was closing the car trunk when I turned around and saw that Kris and I were being observed by this lonely creature sitting amid the tall waving weeds, sitting cooly and assuredly and yet somehow mischievously. In the next several minutes he crept closer in, never venturing too far from his safety net of bushes, as if he were an early maritime explorer and the bushes were his shoreline; he could always retreat if these two girls turned out to be monsters. Anyhow, we weren’t, and he spent the next hour rubbing his body against our legs, arching so much that he would fold himself into somersaults and then, twisting, would flop his legs open, inviting us to stroke his tummy. He batted at the paper from my sandwich wrap, ripping into it with his little pin-prick nails and poked his head up through the slats of my fold-out chair. He was so frisky and so social. When Kris and I had to go, he seemed to bid us goodbye, thanking us for visiting his realm. Then he darted back into his weed-filled abode, ready and waiting to capture the hearts of others. Dear dear Triscuit.

Here I am, sitting at home in Virginia with my room unpacked and my new bachelor-of-arts degree folded up with Mom and Dad’s in the downstairs closet. It’s amazing how different this night is from the Tuesday night of last week—how different one week is from another…

I returned from my three-hour final in which I was to synthesize modern world history with our class texts of Amusing Ourselves to Death, I’ll Take My Stand, Eugenics and Other Evils, Communism, Witness, and Death of the West under a coherent thesis and significant conclusion, to find that Dad had called me five times. I knew what that meant.

He called to tell me Mammie died.

That evening I would circumnavigate MAP three times as Dad and then Mom explained what had happened. I remember the sobs and shuddering breaths and then the disbelief. When the furious flush of tears and questions abates, you’re left to trod out your grief to the rhythm of your own tired footsteps. Then stillness gives way—If I left right after my final tomorrow morning, can I make it in time for her funeral? “But what about graduation?” Commencement paled in comparison to her funeral. Dad checked every flight as I dumped my clothes and desk papers into any box or bag I had in preparation for my sudden exodus. But he could not find anything. I felt trapped on the campus of Grove City, needing two days to travel but only having one and a half days before the 12 o’clock Thursday service.

My great-grandmother…as time goes on, I’ll learn more of her accomplishments and beliefs—isn’t that the way, getting to know a person after she’s died better than you knew her in life? You find that she practically resurrected Pine Grove Church, she was the bulwark of her community, hers was the iron will that ran the farm (minus the pigs, mind you) after Pappy died; she tucked cash in odd places—in a popsicle box in the freezer, underneath the VCR, in prescription bottles; she had an uncanny knack for Bingo and she was crowned queen of the nursing home with Ol’ Tippy-Toes as king (a strange pair, considering she would fire a “Go on, git!” at him whenever he’d tip-toe into her room looking for candy, as if he were a cow or chicken) …you knew some of this but after her death the bits of stories and rumors codify—the nebulous stories and whispers of memories condense into a finite picture of who she was. It’s clearer, but that’s only because it is limited.

I had started a card to Mammie several weeks ago, telling her how much I’d appreciated our chats about her farming days. It sits, unfinished, on my desk now.

Those of us who couldn’t make it to Madison are going down in the fall on our own pilgrimage of sorts.

Before the seas and lands had been created,

before the sky that covers everything,

Nature displayed a single aspect only

throughout the cosmos; Chaos was its name,

a shapeless, unwrought mass of inert bulk

and nothing more, with the discordant seeds

of disconnected elements all heaped

together in anarchic disarray.

The sun as yet did not light up the earth,

nor did the crescent moon renew her horns,

nor was the earth suspended in midair,

balanced by her own weight, nor did the ocean

extend her arms to the margins of the land.

Although the land and sea and air were present,

land was unstable, the sea unfit for swimming,

and air lacked light; shapes shifted constantly,

and all things were at odds with one another,

for in a single mass cold strove with warm,

wet was opposed to dry and soft to hard,

and weightlessness to matter having weight.

Some god (or kinder nature) settled this

dispute by separating earth from heaven,

and then by separating sea from earth

and fluid aether from the denser air;

and after these were separated out

and liberated from the primal heap,

he bound the disentangled elements

each in its place and all in harmony.

from Ovid's Metamorphoses

I finished my classes today and with them, my last assignments for quite awhile. My final project was acting a scene from classical literature, so Meagan and I decided to try the opening scene from Antigone, the second play of Sophocles' Theban trilogy. I played Ismene and Meagan played Antigone, which suited our personalities rather well, for Antigone is bold with her ideals while Ismene is grounded and meek.

Oh my sister, think-think how our own father died, hated...

yes, if you can, but you're in love with impossibility!

rest assured, wild irrational as you are, my sister

...you are truly dear to the ones who love you

These lines still swirl through my head when I am still. I suppose I could say that art marches on, transcendent, but I don't have the strength for that, Ismene would say.

Now it is time to catch up with my reading.

The way is dark, the road is steep;

But He's become my eyes to see.

The strength to climb, my griefs to bear,

The Savior lives inside me there

~from "A Living Prayer"

I have been feeling as if the way is dark...dark with mystery. I like the dark just as I like mystery, but to continue trudging towards the unlit future is daunting indeed. I am used to living under the scrutiny of school's stage-light which floods its fluorescent rays over every thought and examines each, even those I should prefer to clean up before displaying. Intelligence and ignorance are illuminated alike, for in college there is no corner which the stage-light does not reach.

The future, in contrast, is dim. It's like my backyard at night: I'm pretty sure I know what's out there, for I've spent the day weeding and mulching and mowing and planting until I am familiar with its present components. But what if, during Apollo and Artemis's shift-change, the beds were rearranged? What if a vole destroyed the roots of the hydrangea or a bear crushed the maple sapling? What if the flimsy plastic chairs tipped over or my neighbor's volley-ball rolled over into the middle of my yard? The nighttime veil covers over my physical sight and allows my mind's eye, the imagination, to see better, making the familiar unfamiliar. I would just stay comfortably in my well-lit house, but sometimes the back beckons me and I venture onto the deck in order to peer beyond. I see shadows mostly, so I turn to go inside.

Ting. A little light flashes near the fence. Ting-ting. Two more are over by the blueberry bush. The fire-flies are out, speckling the shadows with their humble coruscations, and I catch glimpses of what could be out there.

What might the fire-flies have illuminated? Here is the outline of some shape I think I saw by the light of the two over by the blueberry bush: I plan to...

• work at an entry level position in my local library, or, depending upon openings, someone else's local library for a year in order to gain experience and save up
• take the GREs (I hoped it would never come to this, but...)
• attend an ALA accredited master's program in library science (I will look into the programs at Catholic University [D.C.], University of Kentucky, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill--always my dream to go there! and St. John's University [NY]). Or I could always join Meagan at the University of Pittsburgh, where she will be studying for her master's in library science--we could room together and go Scottish Country Dancing every week!
• procure a job as a librarian--either local or collegian
• pay back my graduate school loans

All the while, I should continue to clean houses and continue to write short stories for the volume I hope to finish before I'm fifty.

I hope the fire-flies showed me well.

We're going to Scotland!!! Linda so very generously offered to host my two roommates and me for a few days in St. Andrews, a university town jutting out above the Firth of Forth which is the inlet above Edinburgh. She even said she'd be happy to act as tour guide and taxi when she's not working. Her hospitality never ceases.

So now I'm off to order our Globe tickets for King Lear and then we'll be all set. Oh, except for figuring out our health insurance, but I'll save that for a dreary day.

I thought I was going to make it through GCC without a hard-drive crash, but no; I didn't. My computer would not start up yesterday, so I brought it to the TLC and when I asked the girl who was staffing the desk what caused the malfunction, she said simply, "It's a senior computer."

I guess it's just supposed to break down.

Besides happening in a hectic two weeks, however, my computer chose a good time to quit working, for it gave me the opportunity to get a brand new hard-drive in my last few weeks of school. The whole process was pretty painless--until I got back to my room and found that the new Word and Outlook were loaded on my computer instead of my beloved old suite. I hope it's easy to figure out.

In class today we explored the relationship between love of truth and intellect, and love of someone—basically, the head versus the heart issue. Must one who devotes herself to academia revoke that when she gets married or can she unite the two (assuming they are exclusive, which I’m not sure that they are)? I don’t think this is actually a valid question because love of education and love of someone are merely outside distinctions of one foundational love and one unified personality. I love a book because it touches something within me—an experience or emotion or dream or idea and shows me some facet of God. Poetry beautifully written, whether purportedly Christian or not, will display before me God’s own beauty and his delight in craftsmanship which his man-creation has unwittingly echoed or reflected. A man whom I would love romantically I would love because he, too, touches something within me, and I am drawn to him as I see his godly character, a visible reminder of God’s character, which is invisible. The man, however, can never approach Christ’s purpose, for he perfectly is God’s invisible character visible and the man imperfectly is God’s invisible character visible. I suppose that’s why man was made in the image of God, a likeness but not essence, while Christ is like God in essence.

So how did I get to this point? Oh yes, discussing the unity of the personality, how love for things is an expression or desire for God the source. But also love itself is not entirely this mysterious force; it is very much based upon knowledge. Paul writes that love is patient, love is kind . . . Say I love this man again—it is because I’ve seen him display such patience, such kindness in many different situations over much time. I know him to act like that normally and so I trust him with my love. It is, in fact, a verifiable love, most definitely formed not by a flight of fancy but by empirical evidence, weighed deliberately.

So...after I graduate. It's the question that dogs every senior, what are you doing afterwards? I usually flee to an explanation of my summer plans and hope that will suffice, but beyond that we both know a blank future looms--and I mean blank like a dance card with only one or two names filled in. I'm standing in the midst of a swirling dance, watching some couples relishing the music and their intimacy, some only dancing dutifully and listening sharply for the final chords, and some, like myself, standing on the perimeter enjoying it all but not dancing. I see several fine looking young men, and I hope at least one might see me and put his name down for a dance.

Who are my choices? Well, Mr. Editing seems to lurk at these affairs, but he's looking more dapper than usual--perhaps it's because he's realizing that editing can also mean editing for a publication which incorporates other interests, such as art or sewing and need not be limited to documents or poorly plotted books. Mr. H. T. Guide (I think his initials stand for Historical Tour) walks in and out of my peripheral vision; he looks interesting but seems rather elusive. I don't know about him. There's my old friend, Mr. Housekeeper, who reminds me that my card need not be filled with the names of academic types. And then Mr. Nursing-School is a recent addition to the pool, or at least I haven't noticed him before; I tilt my head. You know, I never would have looked twice at him, but come to think of it...

I've eaten the ears off my chocolate bunny as I've been typing.

Everytime I walk by my hiking backpack, I get really excited and cannot wait to pack it for England. It has 2800 cubic inches of space plus three external pockets for those little items that get so easily lost in the bottom of the main compartment. Its straps are comfortable, and it has waist and sternum straps to help carry the load. What a piece of excitement! I think of where it will go and what sort of floors it will be tossed upon in just two months--let's see, a family home in East Sussex an hour south of London and west of Kent (Canterbury Cathedral) and the white cliffs of Dover; a loft in the Lake District, which Edward describes as a sort of stone tent with an outdoor loo and primitive shower; and an English castle near the Welsh border which, I hear, has a resident ghost of a dog, some ancestor's faithful hunting partner several centuries ago. I'm not sure where the ancestor resides.


My backpack will also see several hostels--two stays in the Bird's Nest in Greenwich and a stay in my beloved Oxford. It may also travel to Scotland near St. Andrews, which is a new development in our UK trip plans. Linda, a former GCC student, is completing her doctorate on the influence of Medieval literature on the work of Charles Williams (what a dream study!) at St. Andrews and, although she has a one-room cottage, eagerly has offered my roommates and me her floor for a few days. We originally planned the WWOOF trip around a Scottish mansion, but it turned out that the couple had no room for us (in terms of jobs, not space, I'm quite sure) and our Scotland plans fell through. We are so excited to resurrect this part of our UK journey with the generous hospitality of Linda.


WWOOF stands for WorldWide Opportunities on Organic Farms, an organization which offers people of all ages the chance to work on farms in return for lodging and food. I joined with Meagan and LeeAnn just because I love to travel and this was the cheapest way to do so, but now I am actually quite interested in learning about sustainable living, especially after having read the Agrarians' book, I'll Take My Stand. There is something to be said for living amid the cycles of life and death which help to foster a concrete vision rather than an abstract vision, which comes with the danger of losing sight of or fragmenting the really real into something which may turn out not to be an accurate reflection of the True.


So yes, I get excited whenever I pass by my backpack, because on its new and innocent nylon exterior I can imagine the smudges and tears of the experiences I'll gain in the UK as I meet people from different cultures who are established in the time-honored way of farming. They are among those of us who do not embrace Progress wholeheartedly but who insist that concrete tradition must not sacrifice itself to some vague vision of the future. And a summer spent roaming? How lovely!

I'm approaching graduation now, scurrying to write my final papers on the Psalms, Keats' poetry, and the cultural events I've attended throughout the semester, some of which have been an amazing lecture given by Dr. Michael Ward on Lewis' Narnian series, David Hirson's play La Bete, and scenes from Thomas Cranmer written by Charles Williams for the Canterbury Festival.

But, lectures and papers aside--well, I'll stop there, because that is something I've been tempted to do these past weeks: scrap the school work for sewing and painting. I've got some old clothes I want to reconstruct when I get home--you know, making alterations such as adding a bodice to a skirt to make a dress, bleaching designs into solid tee-shirts, or even just salvaging the fabric and making a whole new garment or pillow or quilt. Reconstructing old clothes is something that's all too easily lost when it's cheaper and faster to get something new rather than rework what we already have. But with the ease of buying factory-made clothes, we lose an opportunity to exercise our creativity and our minds.

As for painting, I've recently started Japanese brush painting and have been painting birds and rabbits and fish and trees as much as I can. It's such an exercise in distilling the complicated network of muscle and movement and texture down to a few strokes which still must convey the animal. Sometimes my birds don't look like birds and my carp rarely look like carp, but I still love the process of grinding the ink stick and mixing it with water and experimenting with all the strokes of which the brush is capable.