dead days... really?

Now Playing: "The Book of Secrets" by Loreena McKennitt. Track 5, "The Highwayman".

Well, well, look at this.... I've actually been on here for a year-and-a-day. Yesterday was the year anniversary of this blog. But don't go back and read those posts, because I was still figuring out how it worked.

My thanks to those who suffered through that last post. I admit, it was dreadfully long. This one may be somewhat shorter and thus more manageable.

Today was the first dead day. No classes and not much happening on campus. I woke early and drove out to the Ls’ house to give Karis a lesson. Karis opened the front door with a smile. Everyone was still eating breakfast, except Karis. The house smelled warmly of freshly baked bread. “I just baked them,” Mrs. L said, pointing to racks of honey-brown loaves on the counter, “and I’d like to give you one when you leave.” Karis and I had a good lesson in the little cluttered schoolroom: meter, rhyme, and pun.

At ten o'clock, I met with Dr. A about my Honors paper. I found her in a cheerful mood. We laughed about interruptions: she told me that being a religion professor has its drawbacks because she’s constantly getting calls or e-mails from people who want to know things that they could just as easily find out by looking at the Bible. “I had a news reporter call me over Easter and ask me if the resurrection had really happened!” she laughed. “I told him to go look at the Bible.” We talked about my paper, straightening things out somewhat. She encouraged me in a couple of spots that I had been unsure about. When there was nothing else to say, and neither one of us could stretch the time any longer, I left. “Salve!” she murmured after me as I went down the narrow hall. I returned to my room with a bittersweet feeling.

For the rest of the morning, I worked on my Honors paper. Tara knocked on my door at about twelve-thirty. “Hi, Evelyn! Ready to watch a movie?” she asked. We went down to the Lottie lobby together to watch “Whisper of the Heart”, an Anime film that Matt had lent me and had recommended to both Tara and me. We curled up in the lobby on the floor in front of the big TV. The lobby was dim and empty, the tall windows only showing strips of cold, grey sky outside. Using the overstuffed footstool as a table, I sliced chunks off the warm, doughy loaf that the Ls had given me, spread them with butter and jam, and ate that as we watched. I shared the bread with Tara, too. The movie was sweet, if a little corny in places--about a girl who writes fairytales. The animation was impressive: some of the scenes of the sky were so detailed as to look real.

After the movie, I spent the afternoon trying to study, though I was so sleepy that my attempts weren’t very successful. In the evening, I walked over to Kendall Hall for a staged reading of “Everyman” by one of the other Honors sections, Dr. C’s section. The theatre they used was Theatre II, smaller than the main theatre and used mostly for classes. I stepped through a narrow entry area into the theatre itself, which was basically a big, black box. No windows, but a ceiling that shot up to a dusty roof. Props, cords, and chairs were tossed untidily in the corners. Red sheets covered a bank of mirrors across the room. I glanced about uneasily as I took my seat in one of the few rows of chairs that had been set up. There was no stage, but the center of the floor had been cleared and set with props for the play. Students from the Honors section, the actors, horsed around. As the play began, the seats around me filled up: most of the audience was late, including Rachel, who winked at me as she came in. The class performed “Everyman” in its entirety. Each actor wore a black T-shirt with the name of his or her character printed across the chest. The stage was set up with twelve stations, and at each station was an actor embodying some characteristic: Good Deeds, Wealth, Fellowship, Beauty, Strength, Knowledge, etc. Each actor had a prop to clue the audience as to his or her characteristic. Danielle, playing Five Wits, scribbled busily in a notebook, while the boy who played Wealth had on a big shiny belt buckle and strings of plastic Mardi Gras beads strung around his neck, and Fellowship drank constantly from a plastic tankard. A small girl sitting beside me giggled at the most religious parts and made fun of the actors. The actors themselves were rather irreverent: Whitney, a girl, played God. On a philosophical level, I found the good-works-will-save-you message disappointing (to put it mildly).

After the play ended,I spent the hour until RUF studying. During RUF, the group sung many hymns, with readings from Isaiah interspersed. After the time of worship, Mr. K asked the seniors to come up and give testimonies. Then Mr. K turned off the lights, Jason turned on his laptop, and we watched a slideshow of pictures from the past year set to various songs. (If you want to see a few pictures from the slideshow, go to Jenny S.’s Xanga.) I began to realize just what a blessing this semester has been, in some ways. After the slideshow, Mr. K asked his wife to pray for the seniors, and she did, solidly and faithfully mentioning each one of them. He closed, pronouncing the benediction on our bowed heads.

After RUF, I stood and talked with Syneva about our plans to go to the Philbrook. Alisha stopped by to tell us that she probably won’t be able to go (we were hoping to go together as a threesome) because she has two twenty-page papers due, and she spent most of the afternoon today on the phone trying to straighten out complications with airplane tickets: she and Tara are going to South Africa on a mission trip this summer, and somehow her tickets were messed up. Mandi came by to work out details for the barbecue/game night this Friday. Then she looked at me. “Hey, am I going to see you again?” I shook my head with a smile. “Well, I guess I’d better say good-bye then.” She hugged me. “You’d better hug her twice,” Syneva said snidely, watching us with an impish grin, “You know she’s going on an airplane, and you may never see her again. She might die.” “Oh, dear! Will I be invited to the funeral?” Mandi asked. “Yeah, sure. I’ll be there. Sort of. But I won’t be able to hug you,” I laughed.

After awhile, Syneva and I decided to leave. We walked to Lottie, where I went up to my room to grab Esther’s amaryllis plant, which had been donated by my mother and Brother2 for me to give her. Syneva came along to see my room. We scurried over to the apartment, bracing ourselves against the cold north wind that raced down the street. Syneva opened the door to the apartment, and we stepped into the warmth thankfully. The living room was dim with lamplight. Esther lay on the sofa, wrapped in blankets, her neck still in its brace. Flowers in vases stood everywhere—on the counter, on the TV table, on the dining table. “Smells like a greenhouse in here,” I commented, sniffing the polleny chlorophyll smell. I sat on a chair by the TV, while Syneva sprawled on the floor. The three of us carried on a good conversation, Syneva contributing snide jabs whenever there was an opportunity. Esther was quite pleased to see the amaryllis, though it’s only budding now, and eagerly requested that I ask my mother for directions about keeping it over the winter. Esther’s mother, sitting elegantly in an armchair by the sofa, said that one of Esther’s great-uncles used to keep a greenhouse full of amaryllises.

I told Esther that the neighbors across the balcony from the apartment were moving out. “Good!” she said. “Too bad there isn’t much time left to enjoy it.” “They were the noisiest people here,” Syneva explained, “their parties would spill out onto the balcony.” “And whenever you went over there,” Esther added, “it reeked of beer. I went over there a couple of times to ask them to be quiet, and they would quiet down, at least long enough for me to go to sleep.” I told them the story from our old house: When it was on the market, of course, there was a “For Sale” sign in the front yard. One night, when the house was dark, a group of students from one of the rental houses down the street decided to have a party. The party spilled over into our yard. M woke up in the middle of the night to discover two people smooching outside her bedroom window! Not best pleased with the situation, she marched outside in her nightgown, her hair all frizzled, brandishing a broom. All she had to do was turn on the porch light, and her fearsome appearance frightened off the intruders immediately. Esther laughed and laughed.

Syneva walked with me back to Lottie because she had to pick up her car from the parking lot. When I tried to take a shower, there was no hot water, and as a result, I lay in bed and shivered uncontrollably for an hour before I fell asleep.