Through a Glass, Darkly

I came home today to find The Joys of Love by Madeleine L’Engle on my front step. Well, it was in a box. But you know what I mean. I don’t know what exactly was wrong with me today, but there was crying and a near panic attack and bad news and my day was not nearly as bad as all of that sounds, but it was not an excellent day, either.

But now! Now I have in my hands a new Madeleine L’Engle book, one that I have never read before. One that was never published before. Internet! I can hardly stand it! I will be back when I have had time to finish it.

I am running in a 5K on Saturday. But I have never actually run 5K, so I have been expecting to walk a (small) portion of it. I have never actually run 5K . . . UNTIL TODAY! That’s right! Of course, I ran on the indoor track at UNCG, which is not exactly the same as what it will be like on Saturday. By the way, I would like to speak to whoever designed the route for Saturday’s race. Way to put big hills at the end, genius. Seriously. Brilliant. Thank you. I would say that I am going to try to find you on Saturday and punch you in the face, but I will probably be suffering from exhaustion from climbing those hills. Anyway, I have now run 5K without any walking whatsoever. I do not expect to be able to do this on Saturday (did I mention the hills?), but I am proud of how far I have come.

As a special surprise and because my iPod is not really keeping a charge these days, Mike got me a nano today. He is hot pink. I have named him Lloyd Dobler. Lloyd’s first mission, should he choose to accept it, is to get me through my 5K. And, uh, as you might have guessed from the title, that means playing me some Kanye. I know. You didn’t think of me as a Kanye listener, did you? Well, I don’t think of myself as a Kanye listener, but Kanye’s music gets me moving. And makes me feel slightly ashamed of myself. I have been listening to all the rap/hip hop that Mike owns to see what I might like as much as I like Kanye, and I have discovered a few things that I will detail for you here.

1. Mike does not own much rap/hip hop.

2. I really don’t like rap/hip hop.

3. Except for Kanye.

So I don’t really know exactly what I am going to run to on Saturday. I don’t think that repeating “Stronger” over and over is going to have the appropriate effect. Have I mentioned how ashamed I am?

Speaking of shame, why, exactly, did I have that fourth piece of pizza tonight? (I know! It’s because I ran 5K. Great reason, eh?)

One of the reasons that I truly believe that YouTube is one of the greatest inventions of our generation is that I am able to watch old Sesame Street videos. Every time I hear this song, I have no choice but to imagine a giant letter U chasing Smokey Robinson. And, really, what is wrong with that? (Nothing. Nothing whatsoever.) M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel might sing this song on their new album, but I know that it really belongs to Smokey and the giant U.

At my book club on Thursday, we were supposed to bring a poem in honor of National Poetry Month. Before you ask, this was not my idea. It was the idea of my Favorite English Professor, however, so I was totally on board. I found it fascinating both what people brought and how much it obviously moved them. I have a hard time reading the poem that I brought out loud, but I was not the only one. Favorite English Professor actually had to pass her book and get someone else to start reading because she was so overcome by her favorite poem. That is why I keep trying to love poetry, and why I am starting to succeed. It is a beautiful thing to sit in a room and listen to people read something that has spoken to them.

I brought the poem “Prayer for Our Daughters” by Mark Jarman. I linked to it at one point from this site, but the place where it was found is no longer available, so I will print the entirety of it here.

Prayer for Our Daughters
by Mark Jarman

May they never be lonely at parties
Or wait for mail from people they haven’t written
Or still in middle age ask God for favors
Or forbid their children things they were never forbidden.

May hatred be like a habit they never developed
And can’t see the point of, like gambling or heavy drinking.
If they forget themselves, may it be in music
Or the kind of prayer that makes a garden of thinking.

May they enter the coming century
Like swans under a bridge into enchantment
And take with them enough of this century
To assure their grandchildren it really happened.

May they find a place to love, without nostalgia
For some place else that they can never go back to.
And may they find themselves, as we have found them,
Complete at each stage of their lives, each part they add to.

May they be themselves, long after we’ve stopped watching.
May they return from every kind of suffering
(Except the last, which doesn’t bear repeating)
And be themselves again, both blessed and blessing.

I just love this one, from the beginning line. Because we remember what it is like to be lonely at parties. And we want that for our children, that they never know loneliness or heartbreak, but we also know that those things will give them depth and shape their lives. And so we hope and pray for things deeper than that, too - relationships and assurance and groundedness.

My Favorite English Professor brought In Memory of W.B. Yeats by W.H. Auden. She said it is her favorite poem, and she said this third section is her favorite, and was the part where she could not continue to read.

Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.

In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.

Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;

With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

I have heard it before, but it was beautiful to hear her read it with such affection. I don’t know why it’s her favorite, but I love the line, “Still persuade us to rejoice.”

One woman brought a poem she said her son gave her one year on Mother’s Day, and it illustrates the greatness of Billy Collins. I don’t have any of his books, but I am going to try to buy more poetry in general, and he is on my list. (If you are cleaning out books and getting rid of poetry, give it to me instead.) This one is for all the mothers reading, and especially for my mother, who has given me so much.

The Lanyard

Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

One gentleman read from Emily Dickinson. Here is the thing about Emily Dickinson. For years (YEARS) I have said that I kind of hate Emily Dickinson’s poetry. But I think maybe I just wasn’t ready for it. I think that I needed to have more life before I could appreciate Emily Dickinson. The Belle of Amherst and I have negotiated an uneasy truce.

There were other poems read, but I will close with this one, read by another friend, by Gregory Corso, a beat poet.

Marriage by Gregory Corso

Should I get married? Should I be good?
Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and faustus hood?
Don’t take her to movies but to cemeteries
tell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets
then desire her and kiss her and all the preliminaries
and she going just so far and I understanding why
not getting angry saying You must feel! It’s beautiful to feel!
Instead take her in my arms lean against an old crooked tombstone
and woo her the entire night the constellations in the sky-

When she introduces me to her parents
back straightened, hair finally combed, strangled by a tie,
should I sit with my knees together on their 3rd degree sofa
and not ask Where’s the bathroom?
How else to feel other than I am,
often thinking Flash Gordon soap-
O how terrible it must be for a young man
seated before a family and the family thinking
We never saw him before! He wants our Mary Lou!
After tea and homemade cookies they ask What do you do for a living?

Should I tell them? Would they like me then?
Say All right get married, we’re losing a daughter
but we’re gaining a son-
And should I then ask Where’s the bathroom?

O God, and the wedding! All her family and her friends
and only a handful of mine all scroungy and bearded
just wait to get at the drinks and food-
And the priest! he looking at me as if I masturbated
asking me Do you take this woman for your lawful wedded wife?
And I trembling what to say say Pie Glue!
I kiss the bride all those corny men slapping me on the back
She’s all yours, boy! Ha-ha-ha!
And in their eyes you could see some obscene honeymoon going on-
Then all that absurd rice and clanky cans and shoes
Niagara Falls! Hordes of us! Husbands! Wives! Flowers! Chocolates!
All streaming into cozy hotels
All going to do the same thing tonight
The indifferent clerk he knowing what was going to happen
The lobby zombies they knowing what
The whistling elevator man he knowing
Everybody knowing! I’d almost be inclined not to do anything!
Stay up all night! Stare that hotel clerk in the eye!
Screaming: I deny honeymoon! I deny honeymoon!
running rampant into those almost climactic suites
yelling Radio belly! Cat shovel!
O I’d live in Niagara forever! in a dark cave beneath the Falls
I’d sit there the Mad Honeymooner
devising ways to break marriages, a scourge of bigamy
a saint of divorce-

But I should get married I should be good
How nice it’d be to come home to her
and sit by the fireplace and she in the kitchen
aproned young and lovely wanting my baby
and so happy about me she burns the roast beef
and comes crying to me and I get up from my big papa chair
saying Christmas teeth! Radiant brains! Apple deaf!
God what a husband I’d make! Yes, I should get married!
So much to do! Like sneaking into Mr Jones’ house late at night
and cover his golf clubs with 1920 Norwegian books
Like hanging a picture of Rimbaud on the lawnmower
like pasting Tannu Tuva postage stamps all over the picket fence
like when Mrs Kindhead comes to collect for the Community Chest
grab her and tell her There are unfavorable omens in the sky!
And when the mayor comes to get my vote tell him
When are you going to stop people killing whales!
And when the milkman comes leave him a note in the bottle
Penguin dust, bring me penguin dust, I want penguin dust-

Yes if I should get married and it’s Connecticut and snow
and she gives birth to a child and I am sleepless, worn,
up for nights, head bowed against a quiet window, the past behind me,
finding myself in the most common of situations a trembling man
knowledged with responsibility not twig-smear nor Roman coin soup-
O what would that be like!
Surely I’d give it for a nipple a rubber Tacitus
For a rattle a bag of broken Bach records
Tack Della Francesca all over its crib
Sew the Greek alphabet on its bib
And build for its playpen a roofless Parthenon

No, I doubt I’d be that kind of father
Not rural not snow no quiet window
but hot smelly tight New York City
seven flights up, roaches and rats in the walls
a fat Reichian wife screeching over potatoes Get a job!
And five nose running brats in love with Batman
And the neighbors all toothless and dry haired
like those hag masses of the 18th century
all wanting to come in and watch TV
The landlord wants his rent
Grocery store Blue Cross Gas & Electric Knights of Columbus
impossible to lie back and dream Telephone snow, ghost parking-
No! I should not get married! I should never get married!
But-imagine if I were married to a beautiful sophisticated woman
tall and pale wearing an elegant black dress and long black gloves
holding a cigarette holder in one hand and a highball in the other
and we lived high up in a penthouse with a huge window
from which we could see all of New York and even farther on clearer days
No, can’t imagine myself married to that pleasant prison dream-

O but what about love? I forget love
not that I am incapable of love
It’s just that I see love as odd as wearing shoes-
I never wanted to marry a girl who was like my mother
And Ingrid Bergman was always impossible
And there’s maybe a girl now but she’s already married
And I don’t like men and-
But there’s got to be somebody!
Because what if I’m 60 years old and not married,
all alone in a furnished room with pee stains on my underwear
and everybody else is married! All the universe married but me!

Ah, yet well I know that were a woman possible as I am possible
then marriage would be possible-
Like SHE in her lonely alien gaud waiting her Egyptian lover
so i wait-bereft of 2,000 years and the bath of life.

I will stop now with the poetry and the National Poetry Month stuff, because I feel so inadequate to tell you how much it moved me to hear the poems that were important to my friends and how much it meant to me to finish reading the poem I brought and have people sigh with pleasure. But you should know this: I have a list of poetry to try this year so that I have new poems to share with you all next April.

Life is full of little miracles: Rainbows after a good, long rain; kind words instead of animosity; friendship instead of loneliness. These are the kinds of miracles that Mma Ramotswe and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni believe in. They would like to believe that their foster daughter will one day be able to get up out of her wheelchair and walk, and though it seems unlikely, he, especially, continue to hope. As Mma Ramotswe solves the mystery of who is sending her angry letters and helps a young woman find her true family, she and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni face their life together with the humor and insight that makes these books so wonderful. As they continue to open their hearts and share their lives, they find that, truly, miracles are all around us all.

I didn’t always cry when I read Alexander McCall Smith’s books, but they are so full of truth about people and hope for a better world that, these days, I cannot help it. The love that the characters show for one another rings so true to life that it touches my heart. This book was no exception, and it managed to portray some difficult scenes between Mma Ramotswe and her foster children without being trite, precocious, or cloying. I admire McCall Smith’s ability to fill his books with such heart without having it overwhelm the story or the humor. I cannot say enough about this series and how delightful it is. Always, always a pleasure.

I don’t know why I don’t have much to say this week. I did, after all, get told by a student in the class that I am taking that I had “a lot of balls” for saying something that I said. “Not really,” I wanted to say, “I just have a basketball that my brother gave me for Christmas, but that doesn’t seem like a lot. I guess it depends on your definition.” But since this fine young man has a tendency to fly off the handle and make The Most Extreme Argument Possible when people disagree with him, it didn’t seem worth it to bait him.

I am looking forward to this weekend, though. One of the art teachers at my school has her birthday tomorrow, and we are going to Natty Greene’s tomorrow after work to celebrate. As we discovered recently, I am a fan of the Old Town Brown, so I will probably partake of some tomorrow evening. This seems like a good opportunity to tell you what my five favorite non-chain restaurants in Greensboro are. Mike and I talk about this from time to time, because I like things like lists. And favorites. In no particular order:

-Bianca’s Italian Eatery. This is our go-to restaurant. If we are wanting to eat Italian, we don’t go anywhere else. Besides, we aren’t regulars anywhere else.

-The aforementioned Natty Greene’s. They have good burgers and sandwiches. People like their beer. This is a win-win-win restaurant.

-Phoenix Asian Cuisine. Basically, this is like P.F. Chang’s. Without the wait. Or the overratedness. (They don’t have a website.)

-Lucky 32. Oh, Lucky 32, I have loved you for so long. And I continue to love you. And your delicious food. And also the peanut butter pie.

-New York Pizza on Tate Street. I know, you think this is just a holdover from my college days. And I did used to go here every week after class with my friend Jennifer and order two slices of mushroom pizza. But I swear to you, this is my favorite pizza in Greensboro. (I tried googling it and I am afraid that people are saying that it’s not as good as it used to be. But the last time I had it it was still awesome. We don’t eat pizza out very much, so it was back in the fall.)

Honorable mention:
-First Carolina Delicatessen. I, uh, like their sandwiches. The end.

I was supposed to tell you about my weekend, but I got a little distracted with the restaurant stuff. Here’s what I really wanted to tell you: On Saturday, I am going to visit my friend Shelby. You know, Shelby. She and Trey are each other’s mutual favorites. Or something like that. Anyway, Shelby and I have not seen each other in over a year, but we are meeting in Salisbury on Saturday, and you can be sure that there will be shenanigans. As we were planning this outing, she sent me an email saying: “I wore some really pretty high heels last week and sank and tripped into the side of a hill in the parking lot of CVS trying to cut across, it was great. Only you would appreciate that story….” Because Shelby knows. She knows I love the embarrassing stories. If anything embarrassing happens to us (and, knowing us, it will), I will report back.

Two words: Field. Trips. I didn’t used to get paid to go to Grasshopper games in the middle of the day. But now I do. Take that, old job!

(I really liked my old job. But this one is pretty great, too.)

((Alisa asked if I made the kids sing the waffle song. And the answer is: Of course. Of course I did.))

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

Happy National Poetry Month!

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson
done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the
themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.

—

Happy National Poetry Month!

I keep doing things and not telling you about them, and then I never know whether to tell you about them later. Especially if it would have been better if I took a picture, but I didn’t take any pictures. Like when I made this Cranberry, Caramel, and Almond Tart for Easter dinner with my family. It was really pretty, but I had a bit of a problem with the caramel, so it could have used a tad more caramel. It was still delicious, though. Not as pretty as hers, but, as Brian can attest (because I made him come out to my car and look at it), it was still quite pretty. My first tart! Yay! For Easter lunch with our friends, I made this pasta with cauliflower, walnuts, and feta, and . . . I know all of that sounds strange, but it was really good.

I have read a lot of books I haven’t told you about, either. I have been reading stuff about Sylvia Plath, so first I read Your Own, Sylvia by Stephanie Hemphill, and then I read Ariel: The Restored Edition by Sylvia Plath, and then I read Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath by Kate Moses, and now I am reading The Bell Jar for the first time. And I didn’t tell you about any of it, internet. Sorry.

I also read Belong to Me, the new book by Marisa de los Santos, which I enjoyed, but not quite as much as Love Walked In. Still very much worth a read, however. I would also like to put in a plug for one of the best YA novels I have read in a long time: Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock. Ignore the fact that she is Elizabeth Gilbert’s sister. She is way cooler. This is a great book about a girl finding her voice and her place in her family. I checked out the sequel, but I am afraid to read it because I liked Dairy Queen so freaking much. Also, now that I have completed the readings for my class, I am luxuriating in the ability to read novels written for grown-ups.

Mike and I have been watching Miss Guided. I don’t hear anyone talking about it. But I love Judy Greer. She is so adorable and perky. I hope this show sticks around. The fact that they aired about 5 episodes in one week does not seem promising. I don’t know when it comes on. I just set a season pass on TiVo because I am technologically savvy like that. Also, I still love The Office, but I think 30 Rock is the best show on television these days. The past two episodes have been phenomenal.

On Friday night Mike and I went with Andrea and Charles and some of their friends to see Wicked in Charlotte. They ended up with some extra tickets, and we decided to go. As you may recall, I have seen it before. But I was the only one in our group who had seen it, and I certainly didn’t know the songs as well as they did, so I guess it all balanced out. I was glad that Mike was able to go, and he really enjoyed it (as I thought he would). We sat right in front of some teenagers who I feared were going to sing through the entire show, and Charles counseled me on how to handle it. It was very informative. Apparently, instead of lashing out at people like I normally do, you can simply ask them to stop singing. They did not sing, however, so we don’t know if this would have worked. In theory, though, it sounds really good and I will try it sometime.

My mom is on a cruise in the Mediterranean. Let’s all pause and think about how much we hate her for that. (Just kidding. I love my mom! Also, it is weird not to talk to her every day. Come home soon, Mom! Not that you are reading this! You are too busy doing awesome things!)

We have not yet sold our house. In case you were wondering. I know, it’s too soon, and that’s cool. We didn’t expect to sell it yet. But I do confess to getting my hopes up every time someone comes to see it. I can’t help it. It will be best if it works out for us to be able to move this summer, so please keep your fingers crossed that it will sell. It would be really nice if it did. Really, really nice. Have I mentioned that the stress of all of it has possibly caused me to develop an ulcer? It’s true. So please keep your fingers crossed. So the pain will stop. I don’t know that it would be all that great for me physically if I continue to live like this.

And, uh, speaking of the summer. Mike has officially finished his student teaching. No, seriously. He’s done with college! What in the world?! How did this happen? Do you remember when he quit his job and started college? Me too! And now he’s done! Holy cow! Also, he will be graduating with a 4.0. I know you were wondering.

So, anyway, those are a few things that are going on with us. There are a lot of reasons I haven’t brought these things up, and I would like to blame it on time issues, but, really, I have been struggling with some real inferiority issues. I like being me a whole lot more than I used to, but, at the same time, I haven’t liked what all this fatigue and stomach pain and eyelid twitching has done to me lately. I have reverted in some ways to an older, less secure version of myself, one who doesn’t feel very likable, and one who wonders what it means to be liked (or loved) by God. I am working on it, but it doesn’t make for very exciting reading.

Last week, Mike and I went to The Orange Peel in Asheville to see Colin Meloy, lead singer of The Decemberists. Colin Meloy did not play my favorite Decemberists song. He did, however, play my least favorite Decemberists song, the one that gives me the heebie jeebies. Great job, Colin. One of the new songs, though, was really awesome. (I just said a Decemberists song was awesome. I don’t know who I am anymore.)

We didn’t get there especially early, but somehow we scored spots right in the front. I was completely exhausted and the opening act was extremely mellow, so I was thankful for the rail to lean on. It was fun being so close, even though I felt that there were more hardcore fans who should have had my spot. Sorry, hardcore fans. I’m short.

On the way there, we stopped at Chick-Fil-A. When we pulled up, there was a Chick-Fil-A cow outside. I decided to have my picture taken with the Chick-Fil-A cow. The following conversation took place:

KARI: Ma’am?

COW: *turns around*

KARI: Can I have my picture taken with you?

COW: *nods, waves to camera*

KARI: Thank you!

COW: *waves*

KARI AND MIKE WALK AWAY.

KARI: I called the cow ma’am! Hee hee hee hee hee.

MIKE: I thought that was strange. How would you know that was a woman in there?

KARI: All cows are girls! Hee hee hee hee hee.

MIKE: They are? Oh, yeah, I guess they are.

KARI: Hee hee hee hee hee.

KARI: Hee hee hee hee hee.

KARI: Hee hee hee hee hee.

MIKE: I am glad you are amused.

Good reader, that still makes me giggle. I know it’s wrong to laugh at your own jokes, but . . . sometimes I just make myself laugh.

Let’s fast forward, then, to Wednesday evening, when I had my class. You know, the one with Monopoly and unintelligence. This week’s special delight for Kari was that we watched Aladdin so we could analyze it for some of the things we have been talking about this semester - stereotypes, poverty, gender issues. Which was fine, I suppose. It wasn’t my favorite thing to do. I like the movie, but I can watch it at home. What really pushed me over the edge was that the girl sitting next to me kept reciting the lines and singing along. Now, I know the lines. I understand the urge to recite them. And if we were watching it at home, I would probably annoy Mike by doing just that. But I was not at home. I was in class. Watching Aladdin. And I had about as much as I could take of her. Seriously. Two more weeks. Two more weeks. Two more weeks.

When we discussed what we had observed, I seemed to be the only one who remembered the change from “Where they’ll cut off your ear if they don’t like your face,” to, “Where it’s flat and immense and the heat is intense.” At least I added something to the discussion. By being so much older than everyone else. Yay, me!

After that, we watched the trailer for the movie Barnyard, so that we could further discuss some issues. I don’t know anything about Barnyard, but when the trailer was over, we had the following conversation:

KARI: Why did those cows have male voices?

INSTRUCTOR: What?

KARI: The cows in that movie had male voices. And udders.

INSTRUCTOR: I am a city girl. Are you saying that all cows are girls?

KARI: Yes. Cows are girls. Bulls are boys. You can tell they are girls by their udders.

INSTRUCTOR: I did not know that.

Apparently, neither did the filmmakers. And, apparently, these days I am the Cow Crusader.

When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

—

Happy National Poetry Month!

I don’t like to brag, but . . . in my hometown there is a restaurant that serves the best cheeseburgers in North Carolina. The Charlotte Observer says so. I would link to the article, but, unfortunately, it’s not available online. Here’s a quote from the article on the best cheeseburgers in the state, written by Tony Brown and published July 18th, 1997:

Best in the Carolinas

Johnson’s Restaurant, U.S. 64 East, Siler City

Clyde Leonard Johnson built this unassuming little family restaurant on the Siler City bypass, about 20 miles east of Asheboro, and started making the best cheeseburgers in the Carolinas on July 19, 1946.

It’s now owned by his son, Claxton Johnson, who can be found most days in front of the grill, making the burgers the same way, from beef ground fresh on the premises every morning.

Balls of meat are squashed flat on a grill with a metal spatula. Velveeta cheese, cut on a specially made block of wood that is the same size as a Velveeta loaf, is allowed to melt through little holes in the meat so that it burns slightly on the grill. A dollop of hot dog chili, mustard, onions and toasted buns make this a crunchy-chewy piece of cheeseburger paradise.

The molten cheese seals the top bun to the blackened burger while the gooey chili adheres the charred meat to the bottom bun. The ingredients cease being individual components and an elemental change takes place, creating a unified whole. It’s a $2.20 act of transubstantiation.

Don’t wait until the next time you just happen to be in Siler City . This is worth a special trip.

Hours: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays; 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays. No phone.

I grew up eating Johnson’s cheeseburgers (and hamburgers). Not very often, but sometimes. As you can see, the hours are kind of strange. And when I was little, they didn’t even really have hours. The owner would make a bunch of patties, and when he got done cooking all the ones he made, he would stop serving. I like that. It sounds ornery. Like Luke Danes.

For whatever reason, I had never taken Mike there. So over spring break, we went by and had some of the delicious cheeseburgers. Except. He did not have a cheeseburger, even after I told him that’s what he should have. A cheeseburger all the way. That is how I ordered my cheeseburger. I let him have a bite of mine. Even though he had fries and I wasn’t having any fries! His punishment was that he had to listen to me explain that he was not having the Full Johnson’s Experience. And then we called my mom, so she could explain the same thing. Which she did. Using almost exactly the same words. Because that is how important Johnson’s is, and also that is how closely we are connected. These are some things that are important: Mom. And cheeseburgers.

Don’t worry. I will make sure that Mike receives the Full Johnson’s Experience next time. (There WILL be a next time. And next time, I will eat TWO.)

I read (but did not really care for) Rachel Cohn and David Levithan’s newer book, Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List. I read Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan, and I thought it was cute, though not necessarily my thing. But, for some reason, I keep thinking that maybe I am going to like David Levithan, so I thought I’d try Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Also, it is being made into a movie. And my husband really likes music, so the idea of an infinite playlist was pretty appealing to me.

Alternating between Nick and Norah’s perspective, this is the story of the first night of their relationship, the night that Nick asked Norah to be his five minute girlfriend, that they saw their favorite band and began to get over their exes and stayed up until dawn. And I liked it better than the others, no question. But I think I liked the idea of it more than the actual execution.

What I did like was their infinite playlist, their relationship beginning, as they were experiencing that first spark, bantering back and forth, reciting lyrics at each other. It made me think about how that’s a pretty great description of relationships, how I can chart our relationship from “Mansions” by Burlap to Cashmere and “Testify to Love” by Avalon to “The Story” by Brandi Carlile and “Falling Slowly” by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. And in between, there’s a lot of Counting Crows and Simon and Garfunkel and The Beatles and Waterdeep and Kelly Clarkson and M. Ward and The Decemberists and Bob Dylan and Andrew Peterson and hours and hours of Christmas music. Music is one of those things that helps me chart the passage of time, one of those things that causes a visceral reaction as it takes me back to certain memories, places, tastes, or smells. I have said before that relationships are one long conversation. But, as Nick and Norah are discovering, they are also an infinite playlist. As we build memories, we build our soundtrack.

I have been trying not to talk about this too much, but I am really not sleeping all that well these days. I have been trying to keep the caffeine to the mornings and exercise and do the right things, but so far all that has gotten me is a twitchy eyelid and a mind that won’t stop racing at all hours of the early early morning. Racing about what, you ask? Well, the list is too long to subject you to, but it can be summed up in one word: Everything. Jobs, house, school, Big Bunny, house, anxiety itself, the fact that my eyelid won’t stop twitching, sleeping, the fact that Mike can sleep at any time, whether I should take something to help me sleep, whether our house will sell in a timely manner, how much I will miss my mom when she is gone for two weeks, whether my friends hate me because I am so freaking anxious and sleep deprived all the time, the fact that our refrigerator broke when we had a showing scheduled for our house the next day . . . I mean, really. You name it, and my eye will start twitching about it. And it will keep me awake.

Mike really can fall asleep at the drop of a hat. That fact that he and I are together is proof that God can have a really twisted sense of humor. Oh, you don’t think so? You try being the one listening to his peaceful sleepy breathing at 2:00 am. We’ll see how bitter and resentful you get. That’s what I thought. I am happy for him that he is such a good sleeper, but I wonder how it might be possible to achieve some of that on my own. I have picked up some of his musical taste and some of his favorite foods. Why can’t sleep be one of those things that rubs off on me?

At lunch today, Mike told the following anecdote from last night. It does not paint me in a very positive light, but I am going to tell it anyway. Let’s set the stage: I went to bed with some very bad heartburn and tried to read my book. Mike came to bed and, of course, fell asleep very quickly. I was managing to doze off when, in a cruel twist of fate, Mike shifted and started snoring, which woke me up. The following conversation then took place.

KARI: You have GOT to be kidding me.

MIKE, SLEEPILY: That wasn’t very nice.

KARI: Did I say that out loud?

MIKE: *turns back to Kari*

KARI, SHEEPISHLY: Sorry.

I am sorry, Mike, that I am so bitter and resentful of your sleep. But, really, you should have heard what I said to Big Bunny last week when I was dreaming that we were driving down the road and then, weirdly, the wind picked up and things started hitting the side of our car and making loud banging noises . . . and then I woke up and realized it was just Big Bunny making noise in her cage. A lot of noise. She was mad about something. So I had to go and tell her to be quiet. Also, I turned on the dryer to drown out any further noise she made.

Actually, you could have heard it all yourself. Except you slept through it. Jerk.

When I was reading this, Mike said, “Why isn’t the book just called Hate?” Funny guy. But, you know, we had a good discussion about what the opposite of love might be. I suggested fear and selfishness. Mike quoted Elie Wiesel, saying that it’s indifference.

The Opposite of Love is about Emily, a lawyer who seems to enjoy breaking her own heart. She broke up with her boyfriend Andrew because he was about to propose. She can’t find the courage to stand up to her lecherous boss. She and her father continue to drift apart. She can’t face the idea that her beloved grandfather is sick. Though, of course, Emily has a big turning point, this book is more about the breaking and the new beginning as Emily turns from fear and selfishness (see, I was right!), which is why I liked it so much.

I will say that I thought the book went off the rails a bit about a quarter of the way in, so much that I got a little bit of anxiety reading it. But that can be common for me with chick lit, and the plot was, in many ways, straightforward chick lit. What saved it for me were the secondary characters, especially her grandfather’s friend Ruth. I also felt that Emily’s neuroses were realistic and understandable, and that she was truly trying to change and make a difference. There was a depth to the story that I appreciated. I don’t give this a wholehearted recommendation, but I did stay up late reading it. And you know how I like my sleep.

A friend of mine passed along an article from Christian Century about the handshake ritual at church (that is, pastors shaking hands at the door on the way out). Though I often avoid the handshake ritual, I have felt the holiness of that moment: taking the time to say that something really touched me in a sermon or to mention something that is going on with us and to have someone look me in the eye and let me know that they care what I have to say. I can do that by email, but . . . if I had to guess, I’d say that being vulnerable in person is part of the reason why we aren’t supposed to forsake meeting together.

I was thinking about the holiness of vulnerability last night, after a meeting in which about 15 adults went around the room and shared how we were doing. I would have been glad to share with any one of them individually, but it is hard for me to share my heart in a group. The response, though, really bowled me over, with people literally applauding my good news (that’ll boost your spirits, let me tell you) and sticking around after the meeting to commiserate with some of the things I am worried about. There is something sacred about sitting around a table and trusting people with a corner of your life. I used to think that was something that was easy, something we were supposed to do immediately with other Christians. But now I see how hard and risky it is. Now I feel more able to appreciate people who openly share how they are feeling. It means more to me now that it’s not so forced.

Part of what makes our interactions so holy is that we don’t always know how much they mean. We go out for someone’s birthday, and it’s only afterwards that we find out that this birthday has been particularly hard because of things going on with her family. You find out months later that something you said in passing helped someone through a hard time. Someone looks you in the eye and tells you she was thinking about you. You find the words to tell your friend how much it means that she let you cry on the phone that one time. And that other time. And that time last week.

I don’t know how to do all of this very well. I am still someone who has a hard time saying the words that are closest to her heart. But I am paying attention.

If your wife is totally awesome and goes running in the rain because she is awesome and also she is going to run in a 5K and she needs to be in shape for it, she is going to resemble a drowned rat when she gets home. My recommendation to you is that you not laugh at her. You admire her. Because she is tough. Doesn’t she look tough?

Women Watching Basketball by Marisa de los Santos

For us, five writers, it’s partly
to do with the language, little spells,
hyphenated, elegant lingo,

words swirling like whiskey in the mouth:
pump-fake, post-up, two-guard,
pick-and-roll. We are casual.

Like Whitman–who’d have been a fan
for sure, adoring and bearded,
tossing his hat in the air

for the Knicks–we speak passwords
primeval, we enter this world
and belong. With adamant hands,

we argue calls, how best
to beat the double-team, the beauty
of an inside-outside game.

And, too, it’s the players themselves
that attract us, their lives, loose-
linked fragments of story

each of us seeks and collects:
the guard’s murdered father, the tranquil
center’s Muslim faith,

ten-thousand winter coats
the rookie gave to children.
But, still, it’s more than all

that. Oh, how to explain
why you love what you love?
Picture time-lapse photography,

the certain outward opening
of flowers, one circle of petals
at a time, a smooth unfisting

called to life by notes sounded
somewhere in the clenched heart,
the thirsty root-tips, the body

of the moist earth. Exhalation
of a long-held breath. Green
stem, delicate tendon,

twisting toward the sun.
Because it’s like that,
a little, the turn-around fade-away

jumper. Though we know the ethereal
nicknames: Magic, Dream, Air,
what we want most is pure

corpus, sharp tug of tricep
and hamstring, five fingers’ grip
on the ball–hard, perfect star–

back muscles singing, glorious
climb through the air. We imagine
it this way: to dunk would be life

from the bones out, would be
to declare, Divine is the flesh!
and for once to believe it, believe it.

April is National Poetry Month. Marisa de los Santo’s new novel came out this week. And Go Tarheels!

I posted that poem yesterday because I need to hear that more than anyone. Growing up, I remember seeing very clearly that there was an inner circle - at school, at church, in my community - and that I was not part of it. I even, from time to time, feel that way in my relationship with God. Sometimes that’s okay, sometimes I can say, “Life doesn’t make sense, but I believe God walks with us through it all.” But sometimes that does not seem to be enough. I know that, compared to how the world lives, I am very much not a second class citizen. At the same time, it is hard not to feel as if life’s challenges aren’t doled out quite equally, and I wonder if, somehow, God sees me as second class.

It helps, though, to consider how lovingly I was made, the way I was knit together and how my experiences and understandings have shaped me. It helps to be in relationship with others, to stand up for what I believe in. It helps to consider others’ perspectives, to remember that other people are human beings and not objects of frustration and bitterness and jealousy. It helps, but it doesn’t always take away the sting, the questions. I have a fear of abandonment, and, though I have mostly grown out of it, I still fear being abandoned by God.

There was a time in my life when I thought that we would always see the pattern, that life would make sense, and that we would always see how suffering can be redemptive. Don’t get me wrong - I do think that, from time to time, we are given those answers. But I have learned to accept that, much more often, we are not. Lately, I confess that I have lost sight of any sort of pattern. These days, life is leaving me with more questions than answers.

Consider how you were made.

Consider the loving geometry that sketched your bones, the passionate symmetry that sewed flesh to your skeleton, and the cloudy zenith whence your soul descended in shimmering rivulets across pure granite to pour as a single braided stream into the skull’s cup.

Consider the first time you conceived of justice, engendered mercy, brought parity into being, coaxed liberty like a marten from its den to uncoil its limber spine in a sunny clearing, how you understood the inheritance of first principles, the legacy of noble thought, and built a city like a forest in the forest, and erected temples like thunderheads.

Consider, as if it were penicillin or the speed of light, the discovery of another’s hands, his oval field of vision, her muscular back and hips, his nerve-jarred neck and shoulders, her bleeding gums and dry elbows and knees, his baldness and cauterized skin cancers, her lucid and forgiving gaze, his healing touch, her mind like a prairie. Consider the first knowledge of otherness. How it felt.

Consider what you were meant to be in the egg, in your parents’ arms, under a sky full of stars.

Now imagine what I have to say when I learn of your enterprising viciousness, the discipline with which one of you turns another into a robot or a parasite or a maniac or a body strapped to a chair. Imagine what I have to say.

Do the impossible. Restore life to those you have killed, wholeness to those you have maimed, goodness to what you have poisoned, trust to those you have betrayed.

Bless each other with the heart and soul, the hand and eye, the head and foot, the lips, tongue, and teeth, the inner ear and the outer ear, the flesh and spirit, the brain and bowels, the blood and lymph, the heel and toe, the muscle and bone, the waist and hips, the chest and shoulders, the whole body, clothed and naked, young and old, aging and growing up.

I send you this not knowing if you will receive it, or if having received it, you will read it, or if having read it, you will know that it contains my blessing.

(Happy National Poetry Month.)