RUF Christmas Party

Now Playing: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack by Howard Shore. Track 16, "Amon Hen".

December 1, 2006

For Kevin, who requested it.

Beware of ridiculously long post!

Note abbreviations: RCS for Rachel S., JAH for Jenny H.

This morning RCS and I slept in until seven o’clock. I ate bread for breakfast, typed up yesterday’s entry, downloaded yesterday’s pictures, and worked on my TURC paper. School was closed today, all the buildings except the residence halls, the caf, and the gym sleeping under their blanket of snow. At ten o’clock, RCS went to a prayer meeting. A bit later, I went out to return some books to the library. The morning was crisp and clear, the sky a gorgeous high powdery blue, blue as the thin shadows of the trees penciled on the snow. Everything sparkled and dazzled. Snow on the trees, on the roofs, icicles glittering. Someone had cleared a path down the sidewalk until the plaza between the library and the chapel. There, I had to clamber through deep drifts, sinking far above my ankles. My boots crunched satisfyingly in the snow. I marched back to Lottie, drinking the exhilarating air, and worked until the phone rang. It was Syneva. “Has RCS told you about my plans for your life?” she asked. “No,” I laughed. She invited me to come help herself, Amanda, and Alisha decorate Christ Presbyterian Church (the church where the Knorrs and most RUFers go) for the RUF Christmas Formal tonight. I accepted readily. I fiddled with my paper for a bit longer, then ran downstairs.

I waited in the parking lot alone until JAH showed up. She got a call from Syneva on her cellphone, and Syneva said that it was taking them awhile to defrost the car. So JAH and I played in the snow. We scrambled among the drifts, climbed a pile of sand near the construction site, made snowballs, and marveled at the crisp ripples where the wind had scooped the snow into sculpted patterns. We laughed and shouted and gasped. Kathryn showed up a bit later and joined us. Then Amanda pulled up with Syneva and Alisha in her car. JAH, Kathryn, and I squeezed into the back seat with Alisha. We drove south and west to the church. On the way Syneva poked around on the radio stations, stopping on one station that played atrociously sentimental Christmas music. We made fun of the sappy songs while we drove through the sparkling streets. We drove past huge houses set on long white lawns, trees elegantly laced with snow. “Those pine trees look like little men, bent-over,” Alisha chuckled. Stone walls, slate roofs, windowsills, driveways, flowerbeds, bushes, crenellations, crevices were all full of snow, blue and white in the noon sunshine.

At the church, we found Mrs. Knorr and Esther in the fellowship hall at the back of the church, preparing for our descent. The fellowship hall is a long, low rectangular room with a fairly high ceiling. The ceiling seems lower than it is because it’s crossed with heavy dark wooden beams. Mrs. Knorr put Syneva and me to work stapling silver balls hung on white fuzzy bunting to the ceiling. Syneva climbed the ladder, and I handed her the baubles one-by-one. Meanwhile, Amanda and Esther pondered how to string lights along the ceiling beams. Alisha and Kathryn and JAH washed cups and plates in the kitchen. Joanna, Andrew, and Bob arrived. Mrs. Knorr put the boys to work shoveling the parking lot, while Joanna joined the light-hanging team. For awhile, everyone was busy. Laughter and giggles, somewhat subdued as people concentrated on their jobs. When Syneva and I finished our task, we helped Kathryn and JAH move poinsettias from a classroom into the fellowship hall. We lined them on the windowsills, around the fireplace, under a Christmas tree, everywhere. Red spiky leaves unfurling lushly. Jenny, Ange, and Tara came by, and then left to buy food. We all took a break after the poinsettias, and Syneva taught us the post-ease dance and the Fairfax Fancy. After that, I sat glumly on the brick hearth under the fireplace. Amy, Kathryn, JAH, and Eleanor went dress shopping. David, who’d come with Amy and Eleanor, joined the other boys shoveling snow outside.

It was two o’clock, and Alisha and I were hungry, so we drove back to campus with Amanda and Syneva. By this time the streets were slushy. Water ran luxuriously everywhere, through the gutters, in the low places, splashing under the tyres, sparkling, reflecting the blue sky. All the way back, the girls puzzled over dresses and hair and stockings and slips, discussing the process of dressing for the formal tonight. In the apartment parking lot, Amanda nearly got stuck, but we pushed the car into its parking place. I pointed out a couple of short, stubby, silly-looking snowmen which someone had built on top of one of the other cars. Amanda and Syneva invited us up to their apartment to eat lunch, and we accepted. We stomped our shoes on the stairs, banging off the snow. My socks and jeans were soaking wet. Inside the apartment, Amanda set to work making chili, while Syneva baked corn muffins. Alisha and I nibbled strawberry poptarts and talked. The spices from the chili on the stove started to fill the apartment, mixing with the warm smell of cornbread steaming from the oven.

It was after three o’clock when we sat down at the little round table in the corner, each of us with a broad shallow bowl full of a generous helping of chili, and a plate of cornbread in the middle. Syneva gave thanks, and we ate. The foot was hot and hearty—meat, tomatoes, kidney beans, red sauce, sopped up with the sweet crumbly corn muffins. We talked and laughed about serious things and silly things. It was four o’clock when Alisha and I left. We crossed the street together, sloshing through the nasty dirty snow where it had been churned up by passing cars. Then we separated. I ran back to Lottie, leaping and hopping through the snow. Deep snow on the lawn, where it was too much effort to run. The snow on the lawn and intramural field had been churned and broken, ruined by groups of students playing in the snow. Snowmen and snowballs were everywhere, and someone had stomped a huge word into the snow, though I couldn’t read it.

Back in the room, I found RCS busy working on her paper. I flopped down in bed and took a long drowsy nap. When I woke an hour later, the sun was setting. Clear sky fading now: purple shading to blue, to aquamarine, to green, to yellow, to orange, to rusty pink, to mauve on the edge of the western horizon above the far blue hills. The trees stand up dark brown against the sky. The distant skyscrapers are blue, glowing with tiny golden lights, like ceramic decorations with candles shining from inside. The world is more luminous somehow, the colors paler, shading and fading into one another.

I worked on my TURC paper for a little while and then dressed. I wore my long straight black dress with the velvet roses on it: not very elegant, but better than a normal Sunday dress. When I finished dressing, I managed to convince Rachel, who was very concerned about her MAW paper, to come to the formal. She dressed briskly in a maroon dress with a lovely silk scarf around the waist, gold hoop earrings, and a beautiful necklace with a pendant shaped like a golden leaf that looked as though it had come from the horde of a Sumerian princess—though simpler, of course (and in case you should get the wrong idea, I think the jewelry of Sumer and Ur, ancient Mesopotamian cultures, to be quite beautiful).

We ran downstairs to the lobby, where we found a large crowd of people waiting. Nicole, Kathryn, Syneva, Amanda, Jessica, and Jenny H. were all there, plus a knot of freshman girls. Jason and Daniel stepped inside to offer us rides, looking quite dashing in their black formal suits. Rachel went with Jessica and one of her friends. Another girl went with Daniel, and in twos and threes the other girls found rides. Amy, Kathryn, Jenny, and I were the only ones left, so we followed Daniel out to the parking lot. My boots, clunky under the hem of my dress, crunched on the snow. To my surprise and sisterly gratification, there were several young men with cars waiting in the parking lot, including Daniel, Asher, Spencer, Sam, and Dustin. Mr. K was there, too, with his big suburban almost full. We stood and waited in the cold for awhile, until Dustin said, “Well, we could just leave….” So all of us girls piled into his car, Amy in the front seat and the three of us in the back. Jenny leaned her head on Kathryn’s shoulder, exhausted from a headache. As we drove through the snowy streets, the thick layers of snow and ice crunched and crackled under the car, as though we were driving on broken shingles of concrete. Lights glowed and winked from trees, from eaves of houses, from bushes and windows and driveways. Amy, Kathryn, and I were in a holiday mood, heaped together in our warm coats. We kept each other laughing and giggling all the way to the church.

At the church, Dustin pulled up to the door, and we hurried inside, crossing the icy walkway carefully. Amy, Kathryn, and Jenny disappeared to change into their party clothes. I ducked into a corner to yank off my boots and slide in my silver sandals. Then I was ready. The fellowship hall had been transformed. To give you a brief picture: it is a long rectangular room. In one long side are the doors to enter, and opposite the doors is a gigantic fireplace with a raised brick hearth. On one short side is a kitchen, but here curtains had been drawn across and a long table of foodset up. To the other short side were some tables and the sound system. Double and triple strings of little Christmas lights had been woven across the huge, thick rafters, lighting the room. Trees glowed with lights in the corners. A couple of metal screens, wrought in the shape of pointed chapel windows, held little candles behind the refreshment table. Tea lights sparkled on the round tables dotted in the corners of the room. Poinsettias were everywhere, of course. A huge fire roared on the fireplace, sending out a wonderful warmth. Smells—woodsmoke, traces of perfume, candle smitch, cinnamon-and-cloves in the hot apple cider, coffee, warm melted chocolate on the fondue fountain. Everyone was shining themselves, it seemed. Smiles and laughter and more and more faces piling into the room as cars pulled up and girls emerged from the dressing room in their gowns.

Tara and I took pictures of people. For an hour or so everyone just stood around talking. I don’t really know how long it was—time seemed to have stopped short, and I seemed to be in a candlelit picture that would never change or shift, but be timeless, forever. So many faces and different conversations. Lights flickered and sparkled in the silver baubles hanging from the ceiling. I joked with Rachel about the woes of decorating, and described to her the trouble I’d had with the stapler when it was my turn to clamber onto the ladder and staple the baubles to the ceiling. We sipped steaming apple cider from thick cut-glass cups, and nibbled brownies and cookies and strawberries. It was all very elegant and very beautiful.

When Mr. K and Dustin finally coaxed the sound system to work, we had music—and of course when there’s music, there must be dancing. For a little while, it was just sappy Christmas carols sung by someone with a molasses voice and bells in the background. But then Mr. K climbed on a chair (yes, like Bilbo at the party :o) and called everyone’s attention to Syneva and Andrew at the head of the room, near the sound system. Syneva taught us the Virginia Reel first. Her voice carried authoritatively across the excited buzz of the crowd. She directed everyone to find a partner. I eventually ended up dancing the men’s part with Michelle as my partner. We danced to “Ode to a Butterfly” from “Nickel Creek”. It was beautiful to see all the arms raising and lowering, skirts swinging, shoes stomping, hands clapping at the same rhythm. Like a field of grass bowing in the wind, endless graceful movements whirling over and over to the lilting mandolin music. We danced it several times, and then someone turned on swing music.

So I sat off to one side and watched. Some people in RUF are quite good at swing dancing, among them Andrew and Jenny H. and Katie and Grant and Eleanor and James. Charis, the K—s’ youngest daughter, couldn’t sit still, and kept asking older girls to dance with her. I sat by Jenny S. in the corner. We laughed and joked around. She wasn’t feeling well still, but I tried to keep her cheerful. Even when they danced the Virginia Reel again, I stayed seated.

When they started to dance the Broom Waltz, after Syneva explained it, Kevin arrived in the middle. He didn’t have a partner, so he asked me to dance with him. I was glad to have found someone I knew to dance with, so I accepted. We chatted for a bit until Syneva blew the whistle, and then I was whisked from partner to partner—each guy switching to another girl whenever the whistle tooted so that he wouldn’t have to dance with the broom. When the Broom Dance ended, I scurried back to my corner. The swing music came back on, bass and brass rumbling around together. I talked with Tara about philosophy. Kevin joined us. He and Tara compared notes about video games: Super Smash Brothers and Wii, mostly. We were deep in conversation when Katie came to ask Kevin to dance with her, so he left.

Shortly thereafter, David and Spencer asked Tara and me to dance. The swing music was still playing, but Tara was game, so I didn’t want to let David down. He taught me how to dance, and I became more comfortable with it. We practiced all the twisty spinning moves, tangling arms in knots and then untangling them. I heard Tara squealing with laughter as Spencer swung her through the air (she’s lighter than I am). When the music ended, David and I thanked each other. I sat by the fire with Alisha and Syneva. Tired, watching the low flames flicker and fall on the charred logs. Our skirts pooled around our feet. People were dancing on the floor, still, swing dancing. Jenny H. and Andrew were dancing, each step perfect.

After a bit, I got up. Jenny S. was feeling better. She and Tara and Kathryn danced around, being very silly, jamming to the music. They joined Alex and Asher, who were dancing in a corner, so loose that they looked like marionettes, lanky arms and legs being jerked on strings. I stood and laughed at them. Syneva got her second wind then, and she taught us the Fairfax Fancy. Grant G. asked me to be his partner. The Fairfax Fancy starts out in a Sicilian Circle, with pairs of couples facing each other around the room. You move around the circle throughout the dance. It’s a fast dance, and we danced to fast Celtic music. Everyone was laughing and counting aloud, and there were exclamations, eruptions into laughter as people made a misstep or forgot where they were. The circle galloped around the room, feet thumping the floor. After that came more swing dancing, and more sitting curled in a corner for me.

When Mr. K returned from taking a group of people back to campus, he gathered everyone together in a big circle. We prayed, thanking God for the evening and asking His provision for a family in the congregation whose house burned tonight. Then Syneva gathered the eight of us in the middle of the circle, and we demonstrated the Post-ease for everyone. Then Syneva directed everyone to find partners. Kevin asked me to dance, and Syneva and Carl, Amanda and another young man, and Jenny H. and another young man formed our set. There were enough people for four or five sets (so even though it was midnight, there must still have been about thirty people left). We danced the Post-ease to fast Celtic music again, this time music not as traditional as before, but more like the “Lord of the Dance” music, a cross between pop and Celtic. Kevin and I got going fast, spinning around the squares, until I was laughing harder than I had been all evening. I think I agree with Syneva—the Post-ease is my favorite dance. After the music ended, there were shouts and cheers for more, so we danced it two or three more times. Arches and spinning circles, stepping into place.

When the dance ended, Mr. K turned on the fluorescent overhead lights. “Alright, everyone, time to help clean up,” he said. Syneva, Kathryn, Jenny H., the K— girls, and I moved the poinsettas back to the room where they belonged. The guys rolled the round tables down the hall to the storage closet. I knelt in a heap of fuzzy streamers and helped Josh and a couple of other guys untangle the baubles from the streamers and put them back in their cardboard boxes. Someone else was scraping wax out of the candle-holders, while girls washed up in the kitchen. Stepping into the dressing room, I found that the mess of dresses, shoes, bags, and makeup kits had mostly been cleared away. Alisha and Tara were wrapping their dresses in plastic. We stood around for awhile, waiting until it was time to go. Mr. K flicked the lights on and off, and we poured out of the building, the few of us that were left.

Suddenly, almost everyone was gone. Slush and snow in the parking lot had hardened to ice again. Steam puffed out of the exhaust pipes of the cars. Kevin gave rides to William, Jenny S., Alisha, and me. Kevin and William sat in the front seat, and Jenny slouched in the back seat between Alisha and me. She was feeling very sick. She leaned her head on Alisha’s shoulder and coughed sporadically, her long body shaking. “Can I do anything for you?” Alisha asked. “Trade heads with me,” Jenny moaned. “I’d trade heads with you, really I would, if I could,” I said as we rocked out of the parking lot. “Thanks. I appreciate the gesture,” Jenny groaned back. She and Kevin teased each other, pretending to be brutally nasty to one another. Kevin played Bjork on the car stereo, but Jenny groaned, “No! It’s not even in English!”, so Kevin eventually (after much trading of threats and insults) let Jenny choose something from his ipod. Looking over her shoulder, I watched her shuffle past Holst, O’Connor, Shostakovich, Mozart, Beethoven, etc. “He has nothing good on here!” she complained, her voice hoarse. She finally settled on SnowPatrol, which she almost immediately changed to a rap group, and then switched to something else when Kevin objected because of upcoming bad language in the song she’d chosen.

We crunched through the streets. The car bumped and rocked on the hard snow and ice. Jenny shut her eyes, miserable, and Alisha and Ilooked pitifully at each other across the top of her blond head. Kevin drove cautiously and managed to return us to campus in one piece (despite what Jenny said). I was very thankful for the safety and warmth of Lottie. But the hallway seemed unendurably long, so tired was I. It was just after two o’clock. When I stepped into our room, Rachel sat up in bed. “It’s alright. I’ve only just crawled in,” she said. I changed clothes and went to bed.