Weird Dream

Last night, I dreamed that I was walking around a room full of people in brown trench coats. I noticed that as they came in the door, someone gave them a coat and as soon as they put it on, they bowed their head and started to cry. They walked around wringing their hands. When I asked, one of them told me that sadness was God's will for her and that suffering and struggle were signs of authentic faith. Ironically, not one of them questioned the fact that they came in happy and got handed something that made them miserable. Finally, I stood on a chair and said "Don't put on that coat! It's not even yours!"

Then, I woke up. And I wonder this morning how much of the current suffering I see literally overcoming the people around me is something they picked up at the door. Why do we so distrust our basic ability to know when something ...sucks?

Finished Finished Finished

I'm finished with my first semester at the University of Montevallo and I've had a beautiful time. Today, I'm going to bundle up my class notes and writing and store them away until I need them to study for comps. I am exhausted. There is a good chance I'll make a 4.0 this semester. I dare to hope.

Next semester, I'll be taking Post-Colonial Literature and Ecocriticism. This will be difficult and I will learn a lot. We're reading Salmon Rushdie and Wendell Berry (and many, many other people.) I've read Wendell Berry, but not in an academic context. This should prove to be interesting. (I am surprised to see him make the jump, frankly. Whereas some people read Wendell Berry and say "I love Wendell Berry!" English students are more likely to really dig into the text and not even talk about the author. You get at the knowledge from another angle.)

I've met many new friends that I hope to see over the holiday. So much diversity that is good for me. So many really kind people who have sharp minds and honest hearts. And who never ever ever talk about Red Mountain Church. (Or would really know what to say if they did.) And this is a pretty good thing. For the first time in a long long time, I'm being judged outside of a church context and it is refreshing to just be Susan the Person. Nobody cares where I go to church or where I went before that or before that. Susan the Person exists in the now.

Nobody ever says "grace" or "struggle" or "community." To be clear, I am desperate for real fellowship with other Christians, but I am much relieved to have an escape from that particular language. In some context, these words are devoid of meaning for me anyway and they taste like sawdust in my mouth.

And the most amazing thing is that I haven't met a single person who doesn't respect my faith. I'm not getting any of the Anti-Christian backlash I would have expected and I have almost decided that it doesn't really exist. Christians hate Christians. I'm working on personal integrity and the confidence to just say what I believe without fear of judgement. I am working on being an "integrated" person if that makes sense.

In our Bible study, we talked about prayer and how the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with a language above and separate from human language. (Groanings too deep for words. Isn't that beautiful?) This is what I'm counting on. My faith has become simple and necessary. I have great need of simple things. And in some ways, while I'm more confident than ever before, I am also more aware of my fragility and my great need to be prayed for.

Proclamation for a New Year

Over the past few months, I've been ambushed by friends and encouraged by strangers. I've been the smart kid in the class and the scapegoat. I've been alone in community and a part of something in isolation.

I've learned that most of your friends won't stand up for you, but some of your enemies will.

 I've learned that most people prefer comfortable liars to a hard truth. I've learned that to follow your conscience is to shake hands with loneliness. I've seen the man behind the curtain. 

(There's someone standing behind him, too. And it's probably a woman.)

I've learned not to trust those people who declare themselves "leaders." They just want to put you on their resume.

I've decided that struggle is sweet.  I've decided that easy is almost always wrong and right is almost never easy. I've decided that no one is allowed to tell me who I am. I've decided to dig down deep and see what's there. 

  This year, I've reacted to unkindness with submissiveness because that's how I deflected heat when I was a child. It was a good way for a small person to survive. But, I'm not a small person any more. And when I was a woman, I put childish things behind me. I have no need to be afraid anymore. God's love has done away with my fear. 

I embrace radical un-niceness. 

 And I have been delivered from a fate that's worse than death. 

More than once. 

And I won't forget it.

Worth the wait?

Also worth the wait.

Important Message

People I love

Because you're the wisest people I know.
Because you're prone to telling the truth. Because you're brave.
Because you're happy when I have good news. You have emotional integrity. And you just do what's happy.

I'm back.

This has been the longest hiatus from blogging I've taken in quite some time. I don't know how productive I've been in the paper-writing department, but I think the break was good for my brain. Last night, I presented my "Wanderer" paper to some other graduate students, some faculty, and my sweet husband who took off work early and drove an hour to be there. I think it is no small feat to listen to academic papers being presented even if you love the subjects. I was glad to have him there because it gave him some kind of insight into this weird life I've been having without him. Afterwards, some of us went to this weird little coffee place/bar/bookshop. I think that David liked hearing the professors talk about their work and their students. It made me feel loved to have him be there and enjoy it.

Our little family is the only thing that makes any sense to me most of the time.

I am so grateful for so much.

I've been thinking about a church-service we attended on Sunday. It made me realize that the only thing that matters to me about a church is that it employs a pastor who has a high regard for the Scriptures. I love to hear H.R. preach for that reason. He takes the Scriptures and his responsibility to/for them seriously. He handles them like a scholar. I like to hear J.R. at St. Peter's for the same reason. So many preachers feel that they can't just present the Scripture to their congregation without doing something to make it "relevant" or "interesting." This makes their preaching silly and insipid. Like high school.

Several of the papers presented last night were about teaching long classic poems to high school students. (Why they were talking about classic poems is a puzzle to me being that the class was about 19th Century Romantic British poetry.) Anyway, the consensus seems to be that high school students can't learn classic poetry unless the teacher does something like equate it to Tupac Shakur or make it into a rap. Seriously? One of the papers even referred to 9th graders as "beginning readers." The horror of that! Our educational system is churning out some stupid people who go to school and become high school teachers. (Now, to be fair, several of the education majors at Montevallo are not stupid. I can think of three.) There are no "good" public schools. There are students who learn to take tests and do what the government tells them. This issue will stand like a flagpole on the grave of American democracy. Count on it.

And the same thing is happening in church. We can't study Romans anymore. We've got to study "hope" or "marriage." There is a light at the end of the tunnel, though! There are groups of people who are reclaiming their right to think! This is a good thing. Resist! Stand up to the forces of darkness that would consume your brain! I really and truly believe that there is some conspiracy a foot to turn all of us into non-thinking means of production. I really believe that. We've got to do something about that!

Just to show that some poetry-raps are pretty funny, here is an advertisement tourism in Cambria. This is where William Wordsworth was from.

Sing your song, Margie

And when you ask them "How much should we give?" The only answer is MORE MORE MORE.

Last Word from Me for Awhile!

So, this week I'm going into term-paper hibernation and I probably won't be posting for awhile. This is good for me, I think. I'm a little obsessed right now with school and I don't want for all of my posts to be about that. I'm a girl with a one-track mind.

I've got a preliminary green-light on my thesis. Whoopeee!

This is the happiest I've been in quite some time, my friends.

Goodbye Portrait

Holding a note that reads: "I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!" Chris McCandless, August 1991

Death from Above

In class yesterday, I was assigned the role of "major responder" to the paper of the unfortunate undergraduate student sitting next to me. Her paper was a brief comparison of the "Veiled Lady" in Hawthorne's "The Blithedale Romance" and the White Wale in Melville's Moby-Dick. It's a potentially interesting comparison that she wasn't quite ready to make. Her comments reminded me of Colonel Kurtz's monologue in Apocalypse Now.

Horror. Horror has a face, and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and mortal terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.

Why does Melville's Ishmael paint a picture of the color white as horrible?

Because white is the color of hope, and when it belies a deep malice, it's truly an enemy to be feared. White belies the horror of a pastor who preaches hope and equality and intense community and leads his people to a cup of Flavor-Aid in a Guyanese jungle. White belies the horror of a marriage ceremony that ends in infidelity and immeasurable loss. White belies the horror of a nation who invades to liberate and instead rapes and tortures and kills despite its best intentions. White belies the horror of a Colonel in a jungle who set out to follow orders and ends up a demagogue in a self-made feudalism.

Thwarted hopes are the horrors of the world below.

And all of these things make us plead weak-kneed for God to make his face known as we sweat out those dark nights of the soul that give Evil an opportunity to whisper that it just isn't true. But hope, hope comes in the morning and with it comes courage to face a Red Dawn. Hope that will not ultimately be disappointed because, after all, has he not told us he went to prepare a place?

So bold I go before the mast knowing the sinking of the ship will be the victory of my soul. And if it is not, I cling bravely to the only lifeboat I know and face down the waves beneath the spreading sky.

Susanism for the Greater Good

I met with my adviser yesterday to talk about my "future." It seems funny to schedule an appointment to talk about your "future" on someone's office door in fifteen-minute increments. But, that's what happened.

We talked about my "safe schools." (And at this point, I realize that if it's going to amount to attending my "safe school," I might just skip it. I've had too many bad experiences with elephants if you get my drift.) We talked about my "reach school." And it's quite a reach. There are two other schools I'm interested in at the moment. I have three semesters left to punch up my vitae by presenting papers at conferences, making some really good grades and writing as much as I possibly can.

The good news is that my grades are (thus far) solid, I'm planning to co-write a paper for a conference in February for which I'll get a grant and I'm writing a prospectus for a conference at Tennessee Tech in March. (Cross your fingers for me.)

Here's an outline of what I've learned. Maybe I'll expand upon it later. It might be arrogant, but at least it's honest.

1. I like to work hard. I've had jobs that didn't require me to work hard. Sometimes, I kind of got in trouble when I tried. This gave me a complex. Hard work is more important to me than I realized.

2. I like to be challenged. I like to do my best and have to wonder if I'm going to fail or not. Safety is not as important to me as I thought.

3. I don't know if I'm a fantastic writer, but it's what I'm supposed to be doing.

5. I'm more of a feminist than I thought. (Or, maybe I'm just a Susanist.)

6. God cares what goes on inside the Ivory Tower. God is a passionate linguist and truly, truly, the Father of all kinds of Wisdom. There is no wisdom apart from him. He is generous with that wisdom, however, and he shares it with people who don't even believe in him.

7. I'm smart. I'm not the smartest, but I'm smart. I've finally started to wonder what was wrong with all those people at my old job who thought I wasn't, instead of wondering what is wrong with me. (I realize the wrong and I forgive it. This is power. And progress. And immeasurable joy. And gratitude to God who doesn't leave us where we fall.)

And to sum it up with what seems to be the end line of all my best writing ( you who would be joy-thieves):

Amen, Hallelujah.

(And gratitude to God who Does NOT leave us where we fall.)

I don't sleep anymore.

I don't sleep through the night anymore. I'm not sure why, but my brain can't stop it's buzzing buzzing buzzing with ideas old and new.

And the work I need to finish.

And the immeasurable joy of sussing something out for myself.

I lie awake and wonder about the people I used to know, some years and years ago, in other countries. And I wonder how they are. Hope they are safe. And warm. And I hope that they miss me somewhere in between the busy moments of their over-thought waking time. And I think they should. I made marks bold and bright. And I left some wounds, but time moves like a rake on the sand and smooths them out and leaves us with the tender moments we held like jewels in between those busy, rustling hours that made for us the better part of the seventies and the eighties and the nineties.

And we still hold them, because they can't be shared or leased or given away or left behind a trash can at the mouth of an alley.

And I rattle around this house like typewriter keys shaken in a jar. A student of letters. Learning how and why and where they fit together to make something sensible out of something that spans the length of centuries and has yet to be defined.

I trace the trajectory of my joy across a broad expanse of kindness.

Will Wonders Never Cease?

Yesterday, a student told me that Watergate was not only a scandal, but also a HOTEL! You're too young to understand, she said. Which was, for the first time in my life, actually more complimentary than offensive.

Selfish Selfish Selfish (Is this post)

Sometimes, I get the feeling that more people are reading this blog than I would have ever imagined. (Although, I never imagined many people would read it, so it's still not that many.) I'm fascinated by the dynamic created here. This is my scratch-pad. This is where I go to really empty out my head so I can play with my ideas. Insular ideas don't get shaped and molded. We really are social beings. We can't even think alone for very long.

Anyway, thank you for being here. I'm so glad you are. I wish I could have you all over for a big pot of soup and some really nice beer. (Alas, I am not a wine person. Perhaps it says something about my lack of refinement.) Would you like to come for dinner?

I also have very small and quiet thoughts that run around inside my head and never come out. Only God is present for those conversations and when I try and bring those secret things into the light, they fade away so quickly that they never get the chance to stew and ruminate and grow into something good. I mostly have that kind of thought when I'm driving home from school. (Montevallo is my school-home in a way that Auburn never was. Montevallo is a sort of sacred space for me. An oasis in the desert.) It's a kind of exercise in the sublime as I listen to the road pass beneath my tires and wonder (as I wander) about everything I wonder about. I pray and listen for the answers. And they come in surprising ways. Maybe I pray for you.

I think about what I'm grateful for. I'm surprised to be grateful for the ties I've severed this year. I'm grateful for the ties I've made. I'm grateful that as 31 screams down the pike for me, I don't have any children. I never thought I'd say that, and of course, if I were to get a "surprise" I would be thrilled. But mostly, when I hear mothers talk about their kids, they're complaining. I don't sleep, they say. I don't get to have fun anymore. I saw a woman at the store last week with one of those gigantic baby strollers lumbering through the aisles. She looked lost inside her skin and I felt sorry for her as I walked unencumbered out the door. Maybe she felt sorry for me. (Why do babies need strollers as big as my VW?)

Now, this is a new place for me. And I wonder if I'm at all evil for being here. Maybe. But, the thing is that I have some freedom now. I have a little bit of money, and the time to invest the sense I've obtained in my thirties in something I love. It's a sweet setup, really. It's something I never would have if I had been given the life I planned. I'm grateful for this scrap of time I get to cherish. Thank you. Thank you, God, for this respite from a hard and weary year. If I were still at Red Mountain, I wouldn't be here. And that was good. But this is where I'm meant to be. It's a gift.

It's so weird how this stream of consciousness progresses. Sometimes, I think it is very beneficial to just start typing and allow the ideas that float around in your head to come as a surprise to you. All of these things are a great surprise to me. I'm reading what I'm writing here for the first time, too. (Wild. You've got to try this.)

I think I've had enough of Mothers and their Complaints. To be fair, I've seen Mothers tending to their little ones in surprising and tender ways. I've seen some Mothers glow in the knowledge that what they are doing matters. And not just to future generations, but on some deep spiritual and whispered level as if Heaven reaches down and breathes that what's going on here matters. I mean really matters. (Maybe it isn't babies that we want. Maybe it's just the opportunity to matter like that.) But most often, I see Mothers who complain. I mean, a lot.

And I think about that and I get angry. Especially when I look at the little faces of their little ones and see the thumb print of God there. (Do they realize the situations of the people they're complaining to? No. What a silly question.) There's a woman in one of my classes with four children. One of them is autistic. She's carrying 16 hours this semester. (I'm carrying seven and I'm dying, for reference.) She doesn't complain. Why? I think it's because her children didn't come easy. So, if this not having children thing is going to help me not be a complainer, if it is going to help me value the small immortals I hope to be responsible for (after my thesis, I hope) I choose it. I actually step out and choose it. The hardest thing about "infertility" (can I even call it that?) is not the absence of children. It's hearing so many mothers complain about children that came so easy.

And as I write this, I wonder if I'm complaining about something in a way that hurts someone. I hope not. I hope not. I hope not.

Natty Bumppo & The Mississippi Travelers

The makings of my first book? (Don't judge me harshly. I'm not a web designer.)

Greetings from Fairbanks

Silent Night. Holy Night. I dream of a boy in the water.

It's cold today. In Montevallo, the trees are bent under the weight of rainwater in cupped leaves. The trees are changing colors. I can see them from the window on the third floor of Comer Hall. I watch the night come over the green space between the buildings and brush gold and amber across the shadow of the building on the pine trees. I think of swimming late in summer and I imagine someone from another country cutting broad strokes across the dark water away from me.

Last night, I woke in a start to the sound of silence covering the neighborhood like a wool blanket. No air conditioner. No refrigerator. No dog or husband snores. No sirens. No car alarms. No traffic on the street. No insects. The silence pulled me back into the world. Me. Who can sleep through a firetruck rambling down the street. A late-night band practice. It was too quiet to sleep. This is how I know the city has overcome my brain and made a home in my heart. The woods scare me, the concrete is comfort and people and move go move go throughout the silence of the night.

Houston, We have a Thesis (Topic, anyway)

For Three Years He Walked the Earth: Intentional Vagrancy Across Continents

An exploration of homelessness and travel in Wordsworth, Thoreau, Melville, Fenimore Cooper, and Kerouac.

And yes, I need a better title.


Maybe, "What would happen if Natty Bumppo met Chris McCandless on a bus somewhere off the Stampede Trail in Alaska?" (Well, for one thing, Sean Penn wouldn't have a movie. But Krakauer would have written a marvelous book.)

I need a phone call. I need a raincoat. I need a big love.

It's raining in Birmingham and the big black men at Dreamland have put the first rack of ribs on the fire. The smell of the Deep South comes off the asphalt and the concrete and the rooftops. Creosote and pork ribs and steel.

It's a hot October. The hot makes me crazy. Humans were meant to see a spring and a fall and a summer and a winter.

Last night, a car on the road abandoned, doors opened. We were afraid to look inside. I called the police. The man on the phone knew what I was afraid of and didn't make me say it. (I heard the story of someone from another country who was afraid to look inside. Couldn't finish his thesis. Couldn't see the point of putting theory on words on words on words on ideas. Moved back south like a falling star no one sees. )

October is the month of all things good and bad. October is the nexus of my life. All things start in October. All things end. I can't imagine it will pass me by.

The Southwest jets fly Birmingham to Midway all morning over my cottage. Southwest to Midway, United to O'Hare. Take the orange, take the blue to the heart of the Loop and find whatever it is you look for. Chicago beats a rhythm on the inside of my head.

Listen.

Here I listen to the stories of coal mines and lynchings and steel mills and hospitals and lives made and remade in the shade of the honeycomb mountain. Home. Home. Home. Has a face and blue eyes and a red beard.

My house is haunted. My mind is free. My sadness is forgotten. My heart is hopeful. My head is sore. I need to come back down. I need to come back down. I need to come back down.

Drink. Blech.

I make hurricanes that taste like Robitussin.