news from the flatlands

But you know how it is. There's always more work to be done, or so (too) much has happened, or it's 8 o'clock and exhaustion has already hit, or I'm just not feeling it.

Enough with the excuses. This blog is my sanity.

Almost 2 weeks ago now, I taught my very own class for the first time. Writing that down still thrills and startles me a little bit. Remember how for the last seven years I've said I will do anything but teach? Remember that? Well. Now I've got 14 bright faced freshmen babies. Half of them are bigger than I am. They are still my chilluns. And I go in, and I just get -I don't know- excited. Happy to see them every MWF, 8 am. Let's hope that doesn't change.

***

Grad school, so far, is a bit like being a freshman all over again. The same lostness. The overwhelming mass of work. The loneliness and wondering why I'm here and what I'm doing.

In the midst of all the lonely and tired, there are definite glimmerings and outright excitements. Like supper with J. and N. after that first week, laughing and remembering and storytelling. And glory be, I've already found folks who are Arrested Development devotees and we've had the second of what I think will be many Sunday night viewings. And going to a genuine supper club and chatting with warm and welcoming adult mid-20s people and feeling like an absolute baby by comparison and loving it.

I've got to grieve, as I learn the balance of keeping the gold and still letting go of what's gone. I miss my city. I miss my friends. I miss the hills. I miss having a Target closer than 2 hours away.

It's a desert. And the chance to make it bloom.

the first wilds

How long does it take an English student to put together a simple wooden desk?

(Much, much too long)

But my lovely $20 IKEA desk is finished, and if I weren't so tired I would be proud. Now all I need is a chair. So I can sit at it. And do work. Instead of on my bed.

Then again, the bed is very comfortable.

***

Today was the second day of orientation. Yesterday was the University wide program, and it was excruciating. Unbearable. Primal scream inducing painful. Awful. I'm not going to say anymore about it.

This morning was better. Yes, the speakers were still dull. But there are students here from Cameroon and Sri Lanka. And when I bought a candy bar at the vending machine, but it didn't drop all the way out, and I was feebly pounding the side, a forestry student emerged from the dark hallway and shook the dickens out of that machine and I got my candy bar.

And then, thank heaven, after lunch we were released to the English department orientation. And were let go early, in order to, get this: relax. And I am excited about teaching and the poetry class, and yet more than anything, dead tired and now I want to read. Adieu, dear people. More to come.

Be my love

Today, I have no commitments, except my own lazy list. No projects. Nothing with a due date.

Most importantly -

no place to be.

This is something I need for sanity and health. I love adventures and activities, whirlwind and laughter and exploring. But between work and play rehearsal and weekend commitments, this is the first day I've had in a long time with just - no thing. Which is good. Because I start to get (irrationally) resentful if I don't make the space and time to breathe and be and stop for awhile.

***

Currently obsessed with:

This movie. Which is strange and beautiful and I love it. It's full of gorgeous details, and the acting is all awkward pauses and real, and the cinematography is secret and lovely and mysterious. And it's about a pillar of the English lit. canon, which means I have to watch it.

**

Walking. Which I have not been getting enough of as it's ridiculously hot and every time I make to go work out my mother yells, "The heat index is 101 today!" so I am confined to jogging in place while watching Gilmore Girls. But today I have allll day, which means the morning and the evening, and I'm gonna get in a walk, a good one.

**

State Fair. Our community theatre play is a GREAT community theatre, is a GREAT, is a GREAT, is a great community theatre! I have Rodgers and Hammerstein on a constant loop in my head. I have put together pretty 1940s costumes. I wear character shoes almost every night. I get to sing and act (and dance, Lord help us). And what makes it all so wonderful is that I really like the people I get to see at rehearsal every night, because they are fun and wonderful and talented and did I say fun. And I'm so thrilled about being in community theatre again I can hardly stop smiling. Come see show, July 30 &31, Aug. 1, 6, 7, 8!!! Call 205-699-3902 for reservations.

**

This band. Over the Rhine. And when I say obsessed, do I ever mean obsessed. They sing the songs I want at my wedding. They sing the songs that paint my life. And they have red in nearly all their publicity photos. This is meant to be.

I was born to laugh

I learned to laugh

through my tears.

I was born to love,

I'm gonna learn to love

without fear.

from time to time

I want to write something articulate and lovely and whimsical, but I'm just too dadgum tired. It's true. I can only think in lists and bullet points right now. So that is what this is.

Today:

brand new character shoes with taps, scored at thrift store for $2. Yes, thank you.

also I bought shorts for $1.79, and found costumes for the play. Done and done. I love my thrift store shorts.

frustration, sheer and not simple frustration at life. said frustration probably produced current headache.

folding laundry + Foyle's War + popcorn = a combination that makes me much too satisfied

130 pounds is 10 more pounds than I want to be. Hello smaller portions and exercise.

waltzing and singing, singing and waltzing, rehearsal. It was in very fact a grand night for singing. I love waltzing. And singing. Put 'em together: happiness.

Welcome-though-too-brief call from Anna E. I like unexpected phone calls.

weariness. keep plowing away or change tactics? neither. I know I'm not trusting.

The sky was too too beautiful at evening, all high thunderclouds and sunlight in the rain.

***

Tomorrow:

blueberries at breakfast, and sleep.

GRE project = 95% done

no work. no rehearsal. deep restful breaths.

a Michael phone call

reading. reading. reading.

writing. writing. writing.

walk. in the sun. with my iPod. with Over the Rhine.

and always the unknown. ask strength for the suffering and eyes to see beauty.

in this moonlit field

Today has been good. That simple. I am off Mondays, so I spent five hours on the freelance project. Two of my favorites, Mr. and Mrs. N., are staying with us this week, so I got to chat with them during lunch and enjoy the silent companionship of working on our own projects. I went on a walk, and swam, and there were two thunderstorms, and then rehearsal tonight was long and tiring but good.

Sometimes, just sometimes, Mondays aren't so bad.

***

So tomorrow is back to the littles. And I wasn't especially looking forward to it til just now, when I remembered I get to see favorites (Jack/Evie/Thomas/Sarah/squeal) and hold them. I like being with the babies. I like it when they want to be held for a while, and so I just sit and hold the warm toddler weight of them and their heads fit into the crook of my neck and I want one for my very own.

Then I change five diapers in a row. And I decide I can wait for a while.

***

On the return - to theatre, that is. The community kind. So, I'm in a play for the first time in 4 years, and it's weird and I feel out of it but the slow excitement and delight are growing in me and really emerged tonight and I am starting to remember why I love corny musical songs and diving into a character. It's State Fair, thank you ma'am, and I get to be Margy Frake this summer. I wanted the part of the seductress singer. Instead I am the fresh-faced, independent farm girl.

Type casting? No comment.

***

In other news: Over the Rhine. Best thing ever. Go buy it now, Drunkard's Prayer. Although it does mean I now own a song with a saxophone solo. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

the high country

Announcement: Earlier this morning, a mysterious white cat was spotted by two members of the household. So far it has managed to avoid the over-exuberant Mo and has left the offering of a very large, very dead rat on the front walk. I think it wants to stay.

***

Memorial weekend was four days lost from civilization in the mountains of North Carolina. We stayed at the gloriously simple Hemlock Inn. It's like someone smushed together a camp and a bed and breakfast and a grandparents' home. There are no computers, no T.V.s, and you unlock the door with a real key, not a piece of plastic. Guests smile at each other and talk, and Mr. White, the husband and father of the inn family, sits down to chat with you before breakfast. There are rows of red rocking chairs, and a swing, and ping pong, and a twisty meandering hiking trail, and a long lovely field that slopes in front of the mountains. At 8:30 am and 6:30 pm, a bell clangs and you rush to the dining room, where Mr. White asks the blessing and then you sit down at a big round table with the other folks. In the center of the table is a lazy susan piled with heaps of amazing food.

And if you are lucky, the family at your table has three awesome kids, two boys and a little girl named Jill wedged in the middle. And then you make friends with them and in the evenings you play pretend and catch fireflies, and Cy, the littlest, looks up at you gravely and says, "Hannah, I love you when you are here," because he always puts an "H" in front of your name. And then his brow furrows fierce, and he says, "You will be here all the time and you have to play with us and I will be the good guy."

Yes, these kids made the trip for me. Jill and I sat by each other at meals, and her toy cat drank coffee from my mug. On Sunday morning, when they were about to leave, Jill and Cy were piled on me and stuck their toys in my pockets and were talking both at once real fast and I thought, forget grad school, I want to be a nanny. A little late for that one.

***

After the kids left, I was ready to go too. Because I'm realizing something, and it's that I can't do rural yet. What I mean is, I need people. I love country and space and quiet, I do, and after two days I was restless and society-hungry. I wanted something to and friends to share it with. I think I will have to stay in civilization a while longer yet.

life of a saturday

That's right. I haven't written in a while. Sixteen days, to be exact. Which is a while, for me, seeing that I process life through writing.

I'm taking this day slow and welcome. It's not black-and-white - not slave to plan, either of work or play. I'll get some stuff done. And I'll rest some too. I decided to do the simple and quiet first, instead of waiting til the list got finished, and it feels good.

Can I say too many times how I love a Saturday with no commitments?

***

Required life updates: I have received four rejection letters, from Wash U., Vandy, Boston and Rice. I think you already know I'm okay with this, except that I really wanted to live in Nashville, and St. Louis I love too (can anybody say Ted Drewe's?).

So when I got a letter the other day from Virginia, I was braced already for the "We regret to inform you . . . " - and it was there. They were very sorry that the MA program does not offer funding, but they were pleased to offer me a place in their program. And I am a little bit astounded. And a little bit yearning, because one I don't have the money and two I'm excited about ESL, dangit.

I'm basically saying that I want both, I want to see the light of understanding in the eyes of children and I want to analyze and argue literature. My dad wanted to be a pilot and a doctor. So I'm filling out financial aid forms and going for an interview at UAB next week. And I feel, I don't know how I feel, I feel that whatever I do will not be the whole picture. If I stay here and do the practical and wise thing, that costs the least money and has the best program and provides the most valued set of skills, then my parents will be glad and some of my friends will be disappointed, and some will be excited, and I will be both okay and disappointed. If it somehow worked out that an MA program is financially do-able, then my parents would be less happy and my friends would be supportive and I would still get to use my English brain and I would emerge in 2 years with a worthless sheet of paper that says I have a Masters in English.

All that word spillage to say - I'm not even trying to work things out.

***

Breathing in sunshine. Trying to lose the pressure to believe right, to be right. Captive to fear and fixing most of the time. And the thought of God, He wants us to have Himself, not an experience, just Him in this ragged life, that thought sparks pinpoints of hope in me, and I get gloomy because I can't hold onto them, because I am not consistent and my prayers are anchor-less a lot. So I say to myself, and to you, don't hold on to the pinpoints because you feel you have to, don't make the holding on a burden, because that's what I have done. But realize that you can hold on, sometimes, if you want to, and pray pray pray for freedom.