surprise

Now Playing: Bob Marley, "I Can See Clearly Now" (just a minute ago), and now Dvorak, Serenade for Strings, movement 1, "Moderato".

Sitting in the room in Renwick with the window open, drinking lemon ginger tea (slightly garlic-flavored thanks to Dean's escapade with garlic powder and the kettle), I'm looking at a blank wall. Emmaline's bed is stripped, the desk and bookshelves cleared, the pile of pillows and sleeping bags in the corner gone. I feel like a tiny island in the midst of the blankness, and crying has made my voice hoarse, though fortunately there's no one to hear. I feel rather like Eustace the dragon in The Voyage of the 'Dawn Treader', crying his eyes out in a lonely valley under the moon.

However, such doleful meditations are not the purpose of this post, and I refuse to permit them to occupy more space. On to more pleasant things.

30 May 2008.

The day began for me at half six. Laura and Emmaline were both sound asleep, but sunshine was already slanting through the red curtains. It was depressing to wake up: the room was an absolute tip. I got up and dressed anyway, then woke the other two, and while they dressed, I worked on the task of packing my suitcases. Of course Logan and my father were already awake and breakfasted. We did manage to leave Renwick by about twenty to eight, though, packing my father's, Philip's, Laura's, and Logan's bags into the van. Emmaline drove us to the airport, first to George Best City Airport, where we dropped off Philip, and then to Belfast International Airport, where we left the other three.

Pulling out of the airport, Emmaline and I tried to decide what to do next. The morning was warm and sunny, the sky pale blue and hazy. We ended up in Ballymena after a couple of detours, through the sleepy town of Antrim, where bakeries were the only shops open, and church steeples loomed above steaming graveyards, and to Junction One, where all the shops were closed. In Ballymena, the town centre was already busy. The town centre is a confusing maze of one-way streets, all running at wrong angles, like the veins on the back of a hand. The warm sunshine slanted brightly between the buildings, catching the vivid colors on flowers blooming in pots. Emmaline and I walked into the town centre and went into a mall, where we ate breakfast at The Streat, a cafe that sells mostly sandwiches. We both had pancakes, and she had a strawberry milkshake, and I had tea, and we sat at a table in a corner where the sunshine streamed through big windows, and laughed and laughed, reliving the past few weeks.

After we'd eaten breakfast, we strolled around the mall a bit, completely relaxed. Then we walked around the town centre, window-shopping. Emmaline doesn't shop for clothes but for "gadgets" as she puts it. We went into Woodsides to poke around at the shelves of candy and racks of suitcases, and into Cameron's to look around on the showroom floors. We dandered about in the sunshine for awhile, too, then went back to the car and drove into Belfast.

Rachel still wasn't awake, so Emmaline and I, like the good friends we are, bounced into her room to get her up. Her room was dark, and while Emmaline sprawled all over her, I whisked open the curtains, making her curl up and squeal at the light. We teased and laughed her out of bed. Once Rachel was up, Emmaline and I dragged ourselves reluctantly upstairs to work on tidying our own disaster area. Emmaline put Mulan on her laptop. We deflated air mattresses, stripped beds, dumped sheets in piles, collected pillows, rolled up sleeping bags, and so on. Eventually, Catherine came downstairs so that the two of us could spend the afternoon shopping together. I said good-bye to Emmaline and Rachel, who happened to be in our room, and Catherine and I ran out together into the sunshine.

The early afternoon was wonderfully warm. Catherine and I walked down to Maggie May's on Botanic, chatting about the past week, nodding to Dr. H when we went by him at the library, saying hello to Andy M. when we passed him coming up Botanic, and laughing at people in Renwick. Maggie May's was crowded, as always. We sat at the table under the counter. Both of us ordered veggie burgers. The food was delicious. We shared memories of the past year and talked about the summer and the year ahead.

Lingering over our meal, we didn't leave the restaurant until almost two o'clock. We dandered down the road to Rusty Zip, a retro shop that Catherine wanted to show me just for the craic. It was a pretty amazing place, full of the weird, the wonderful, and the downright ugly. After a look round there, we walked on down toward city centre. The afternoon was becoming hot. The green lawn outside City Hall was full of people sunning themselves. Catherine and I walked on down and turned off on one of the side streets near Castlecourt. We stepped into Clinton's to buy birthday cards and postcards, and paused on the way out to admire the fruits and vegetables spread in boxes at the grocer's next door. Then we went into Fat Face to look round. Fat Face is Catherine's favorite shop.

From there we walked on to a sports shop to look for rugby shirts. Finding nothing, and feeling very out-of-place, we went down to Castlecourt, where we both "had joy" in Lifestyle Sports. The sale rack yielded a rugby shirt for each of us (though we both had to buy boys' size 8!). From there we walked back up Queen Street toward City Hall. We turned off partway down to visit Jessops to buy a camera battery per Emmaline's request. Having waited in a long queue and having had no success, we went down the stairs to Victoria Square, where we spent awhile browsing in Accessorize, admiring the pretty jewelry. From there we walked back up the street to M&S, where I ran in to buy Percy Pigs to take back to the States. The streets were dusty and hot in the sunshine. Everyone was out in sleeveless tops and shorts, the guys without shirts at all, the sun beating down on the dirty pavements. Catherine and I walked back up to Renwick.

Coming back down Elmwood Avenue, we met Naomi and stopped to chat. I said good-bye to her, hoping to see her on Monday for our LOTR party (organized by Phil). Back in Renwick, I dumped my things (the room was still an absolute tip, even more so) and ran out. Catherine, Emmaline, Rachel, and Daphne were all hanging about the stairs to see me off. I thought Emmaline's enormous grin, as she poked her head over the banisters, was rather suspicious--she was positively beaming at me. Rachel asked me how long I thought I'd be tonight when I went to Claire's house, and I said not long, I thought. I said good-bye to them all and ran to catch the 17:18 train from City Hospital.

Calvin was waiting for me at Mossley West, sitting in the car with the sunroof open. Walking up the driveway to the back door, I could smell one of Mrs. W's wonderful roast dinners. Claire, Calvin, and I sat in the living room for a little while, fooling around--Claire straightened Calvin's hair. Then Mrs. W drafted the three of us to help fix tea. Calvin made applesauce; I made egg salad sandwiches to take to a church meeting tonight; Claire set the table in the conservatory (glass greenhouse-type structure on the back of the house, warm and full of late afternoon sunshine). We sat down to tea at about quarter to seven--chicken, potatoes, and peas, with a wonderful chocolate pudding to follow. Matthew showed up to spend the evening with Calvin. Claire had warned me that we were going on a "surprise mystery journey" this evening, and decided that Calvin was allowed to come and bring Matthew. We helped clear the table.

Claire, Calvin, Matthew, and I left at about half seven. The evening was still warm and full of sunshine. Claire asked me a couple of times if I knew where we were going, but I protested that I had absolutely no idea. I knew that we were going into Belfast, and at first I thought we were going to Renwick, but we turned off too soon and took another motorway around the edge of Belfast. We went past the Ormeau embankment across from Queen's, then turned off eastward--I recognized the way as leading us toward Ravenhill, and was busy being fascinated by the usual Belfast-style hodgepodge of buildings, houses, churches, and shops from all different eras and styles, when Claire asked Calvin if he had a jacket. When Calvin handed his jacket up, Claire told me to put it over my head. Very suspicious that some sort of ridiculous prank was going on, I did so, and spent the last ten minutes of the trip alternately staring at my knees and laughing in confusion.

When we reached our destination, Claire told me to keep the jacket over my head. She came round and opened the car door, leading me by the hand. As soon as the car door opened, I was hit with a strong smell of cow, which completely bewildered me. Claire led me down steps, around a corner, and into a long silent place full of sunshine. We stood in the doorway for a minute, I by this time utterly confused, very slightly afraid. All of a sudden, Claire took off the jacket, and at the same time I heard Phil Dunwoody shout the opening phrase from Lion King--in a blink I saw him sitting at the far end of a big church hall behind a table full of sound equipment, with a mic in one hand. But that was a split second; instantly all I was aware of was complete shock as the door down the middle of the hall opened and just about all my favorite people from here came running out toward me, laughing, cheering, clapping. In that instant, the first single thought that crossed my mind was, "This is what Heaven will be like!"

I was completely stunned, amazed, delighted, overwhelmed, and any other synonyms you can think of for sheer mind-boggling joy. They were all there--even people I'd already said good-bye to, like Amy, and people I thought I'd missed, like Emma and the ones from Ballyclabber. Everyone was laughing at me. I suppose I looked like a total fool, standing there speechless and grinning as they all crowded round, but there wasn't much other way for me to react: my laughter was almost tears, and an enormous hug from Emmaline was about the only thing that kept me from bursting out crying for the first ten seconds.

Fairly soon Phil got the dancing underway. We danced the cha-cha slide, at which I was rubbish; we danced the Waves of Tory (to dance music--techno, that is); Strip the Willow, during which everyone got heartily out-of-breath; Honeymoon Circle (Alister was my partner, so when we got out we sat and chatted, and I poked Emmaline every time she went by); Long Road to Tipperary (which Rosemary and I almost won, and during which I accidentally stepped on Rosemary's toe countless times); Y.M.C.A.; fives-and-sixes (at which I was also rubbish), and so on. One song Phil played, and no one got up to dance, so he and Steven danced in the corner, being absolutely ridiculous, while everyone sat on the chairs round the edge of the room and laughed heartily at them.

Between dances, I sat and chatted with people. By the end of the dancing, were all hot and exhausted. Some of the girls went to put out food; the rest of us went outside to cool down. The boys made a circle in the grassy lot beside the church and played football. Just behind the church (the hall, as it turned out, was part of Knockbracken RPC) were open fields full of dairy cattle, and beyond them to the south and east green hills rolled away, darkening to blue in the distance. Overhead the sky was clear blue, but in the west, where the sun was setting behind the ridge of hills that ends in Cave Hill, there were a few scaly clouds, turned magenta and grey and gold in the sunset. The cool country smells were all round us. I stood outside chatting with Claire and Beulah, with Amy and Alister, until it was time to go inside for refreshments.

The hall was beginning to get cold, so the door to the outside was shut, and someone switched on the lights. Sarah W. and Charlotte had decorated the hall with paperchains and pink-and-white balloons. A lot of the girls had brought food, and there were drinks also. I sat between Charlotte and Dean, attempting to talk to both of them.

When people had mostly finished, Emmaline took the mic and thanked everyone for coming. Then Catherine and Linsey presented me with two brightly-wrapped packages, gifts from Renwick (!). Andy M. got up and held a devotional time, reading Psalm 39:4-7 and talking about the brevity of life and the importance of placing God as the first priority. He prayed, and after his prayer, we clapped round to thank everyone who'd organized the event.

People began to leave. I opened the presents, though, and sat with a little cluster of people around me, admiring them--a calendar, each page made by a person in Renwick, with pictures from the past year, and a big picture book, Northern Ireland from the Air. One-by-one, I said good-bye to Emma, to Robert, to Steven, to Mark and Connor and Steelo, to Alister, to Mike, to Beulah and Rosemary and Amy, to Charlotte, Sarah W., and Michaela. Heather was so excited when she heard that I was coming to Trinity on Sabbath day that she nearly strangled me.

Emmaline, Linsey, Rachel, Daphne, Catherine, and I piled into the van. Rachel and Daphne were completely hyper and made a running joke out of not having locked the back door (which they had) until Emmaline threatened to scream if she heard it again. We nearly got lost on the way back, and at Daphne's suggestion almost went the wrong way up a one-way road, which made Emmaline frustrated, but we got back to Renwick all in one piece nonetheless. The Big Dipper was swinging over the house as we stepped out of the car.

Inside, the kitchen was a disaster area, and the common room wasn't much better. I was heading up to bed almost immediately, so I said good-bye to Daphne in the kitchen, fighting back tears. Yet I ended up back in the common room for another hour at least. Phil A., Mike, Dean, Jonny, Matthew, Samuel, Andy M., Rachel, Daphne, Catherine, and Emmaline were all sitting around. I downloaded pictures to my computer and sat flipping through them with Rachel, Daphne, and Catherine laughing over my shoulder while Emmaline quietly fell asleep under a pillow.

It was almost two o'clock in the morning. I tried to tease Emmaline up to bed. At last, I waved everyone good-bye and good-night.

second visit, day 8 (adventures continued)

Now Playing: Strongbad, on Matthew's laptop, courtesy Philip, watched by Daphne and Laura.

29 May 2008. I was up and ready this morning by about ten o'clock. EMM was up, too, gradually--she lay in bed and we had a half-amused conversation until she finally hauled herself out of bed. The two of us tickled L awake, then went downstairs for breakfast. While EMM worked on fixing a pavlova for tea tonight, Rachel came in and started to make Mars bar and apple sandwiches for us to take for lunch today, and I sat at the table, eating leftover apple crumble (joining the dark side!) for breakfast. It was at least half eleven before we were ready to go, our sandwiches, crisps, and apples packed into Logan's backpack. EMM came with the five of us today. The morning was mostly sunny, humid, huge spreading grey clouds stretching over the sky. I directed us onto the M2, and from there EMM took over, both of us sitting in the back seat and chatting cheerily between giving directions. We drove to Ballymena, and from there took signs to Slemish, a rather random mountain in the middle of Northern Ireland. We turned off onto a honeycomb of narrow country roads, between steep walls of grass topped with hedges, overgrown with white Queen Anne's lace. Sometimes we drove under arches of trees, and as the roads wound upward, the hedges became drystone walls, patched together. Slemish reared above us, the core of an old volcano, like the huge stump of an ancient tree, looming grey-green against the sky. There was a small car park at the bottom of the mountain, and we climbed out of the car and started our hike. The lower slope of the mountain was springy turf, grass and heather, scattered with grey stones and twisted hawthorn trees. Warm misty sunshine lingered over the fields below us, and the thin insistent sounds of sheep bleating. We scrambled up over the stones and stopped to rest halfway, EMM puffing and blowing, under a hawthorn tree. Then we went on up, Logan springing on ahead, D silently and slowly bringing up the rear, P, L, and EMM joking and mucking about in the middle. I scrambled on behind Logan. We took a path that curved around and took us to the northern edge of the mountain's crest, and from there we climbed on up. Cottongrass, tormentil, bog myrtle, daisies, heather, and grasses, in all sorts of shades, grew on the ridge. A smooth run up to the top, and we were there, at the peak, crowned with grey rocks. The view was lovely, like standing above a great map. To the north, east, and south, the land was flung out around us in a great green-gold arc, green fields, fields of yellow rape, straw-colored fields cut for silage, criss-crossed by hedges and fences. Lines of trees marked roads or clustered around houses, and the green places were freckled with white sheep. To the south, on the edge of sight, was the grey profile of Cave Hill; to the west was the line of the Antrim Hills. To the west the land was wilder. Heaths, moors, brown heather, dun and tan, barren places, where not even sheep grazed, and where the land rose up in crested cliffs, beyond which the grey sea could be guessed. The early afternoon was hazy, grey-blue veiling the horizons, great low grey clouds rolling over the sky. Light rippled over the green land, gold flowing over the green, a land like shaken foil, lovely with the warm peace of quiet places. We ate lunch at the top, Mars bar and apple sandwiches, crisps, apples, EMM, L, P, and I joking around. We lingered there, and took the walk down the southern side of the mountain, scrambling and leaping, sliding on damp places. The endless songs of birds filled the air. The air at the bottom was warm and still. We piled into the car again, and EMM and I decided that it would be fun to go to Portglenone Forest, so EMM directed D there, through Ballymena (crazy roundabouts!). As we were driving along a forested way, EMM said, "This looks like Portglenone Forest," and just then, there was a sign for it. We turned in and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the quiet paths in the forest. The forest was absolutely beautiful. Still, empty, silent, waiting. Great tall trees, beech and pine and sycamore, standing barely lapped in undergrowth. Ferns, bluebells, and moss grew over silver roots. The expanses of bluebells were amazing, curling stems hung with tiny purple flowers--the only trouble was that we'd arrived at the end of the season, and most of the flowers were withered on their stalks. Our feet made only quiet noises on the paths, covered with ruddy pine needles and bits of bark and nutshells. As the path curved toward fields, a few cows stared sleepily at us on the other side of a fence. Overhead beech trees made living interlinked tapestries, lovely lush patterns of leaves supported on silver stems. We found an open glen where huge mature rhododendron bushes were growing, deep red, pink, and magenta. There was a well under one bush, where Logan and L amused themselves fishing for coppers in the detritus under the clear water. We walked on and found ourselves at the edge of the River Bann eventually--opaque green water flowing slowly between the tree-hung banks. We joked around more. L and EMM were being absolutely ridiculous, and P was joining in, their voices echoing in the quiet woodlands. D and Logan walked silently behind. It was so refreshing to walk in the woods--to run ahead and horse around with the three of them, shoulder wrestling, tickle matches, and such silliness--and then fall back, strolling slowly behind the whole group, enjoying the luxury of green silence above and around me. We came up the path back to the car park. Logan, D, and I sat at a picnic table while the other three fished for coppers in a mucky little waterfall out of sight. We left at about five o'clock, and it was nearly six as we were coming back into the house. When we got back to RH, EMM, L, and I started to fix tea in the kitchen. Amy came in to help us by washing dishes. While L worked on putting whipped cream on the pavlova, I cooked the mince and sliced carrots, and EMM peeled potatoes. We made shepherd's pie with peas, corn, and carrots in addition to the mince and potatoes. I got P and Logan to carry one of the tables outside, and they helped us set up chairs. CMAM, Amy, and L helped me serve the food, and eventually ten of us sat down to tea outside in the yard by the car park: Logan, Amy, D, EMM, Rachel, Daphne (who's back, with great rejoicing), CMAM, L, P, and me. The sky overhead was clear, and the evening was warm and still. Conversation flowed up and down the long table. After we'd eaten, Rachel and I decorated the pavlova with a classy (if I do say so myself :o) pattern of mandarin oranges and strawberries, and carried it outside for everyone to admire before we sliced and served it. We lingered over the meal. Afterward, while everyone else helped clear away, I stood with Amy and CMAM in the hall, chatting. At last I said good-bye to Amy: this will be the last time I'll see her. We said a cheerful good-bye to each other. We all drifted into the common room and sat there with Samuel and Matthew. D and Logan both went to bed when we got back. P was watching videos on YouTube with Matthew, Daphne, and L, while Samuel and Rachel were playing draughts. EMM had gone on an errand. We all just mucked about for awhile.

second visit, day 5 (more adventures)

Now Playing: The Mask of Zorro.

26 May 2008. I woke up tired again this morning. I got up, did my devotions, woke L, and went downstairs for breakfast. Of course D and Logan were already up. While I ate my breakfast, they made PB&J sandwiches for us for lunch today. We chatted with Rachel and Samuel, who both drifted in. D had to wake P. We were finally ready to go by about quarter to eleven. Emma said good-bye to us as we went out the back door to the car park—she was sitting in the sunshine, revising. I piloted us down Sandy Row, onto the M2, and from there to the Antrim Road, where we turned into Cave Hill Country Park. The road wound up Cave Hill, winding through green woods, huge rhododendron bushes on either side. We parked just outside Belfast Castle and stopped there to look around. The castle is small, fairly recent, built in the 1800s, I think. Behind it are some small, neatly-arranged ornamental gardens—a fountain casting sparkling arms in the sunshine, tessellated pavements with cat patterns, a little patch of herbs in a warm corner, topiaries, crimson poppies like fine silk. We went inside the castle, which is a honeycomb of small rooms, used mostly for weddings and meetings. We climbed a long tightly-wound spiral staircase up the main tower to the visitors’ centre on the third floor, where there were displays about the flora and fauna and history of the area, and we had views out of narrow windows onto Belfast Lough. The rooms were empty, quiet, still patches of sunshine lying on grey carpet. At last we went back outside and started our climb up Cave Hill. We took the Cave Hill trail, the trailhead near the car park. At first we climbed up through the forest. Vetch, Queen-Anne’s-lace, and other yellow clover bloomed on tall stalks on either side. The sunshine lay warm on the long green grass, warm smells eddying up toward us. Then the woods closed over us, cool and green, sycamore, birch, beech, and oak, thick canopies of green-gold rippling overhead. A few pine trees. The path wound round the bottom shoulder of Cave Hill, then sprang out of the woods onto the steep tumbled slopes. We scrambled up a long dusty path to an actual cave in the side of one of the cliffs. It wasn’t too impressive: a ragged scoop out of the cliffside, painted with graffiti inside, and reeking of stale cigarette smoke. Logan, P, L, and I climbed up to it, but D sat on a knoll, surveying the scene. From there, Logan found a narrow trail springing straight up the side of the cliff, and he went for it eagerly. The rest of us followed. The trail went up steeply, straight up, between the two big shoulders of the hill. One last scramble brought us up over the edge—I was up first, and my heart rose. A great sweep of moor spread before me, with the huge sky close overhead. Brown heather and dun grass, swept over by the wind, great buffeting sweeps of wind. We climbed and ran over the brow of the hill, the great knoll on the top, McArt’s Fort. From there all my best-loved places could be seen: the wind generators on the Antrim hills to the north, the stack of the old linen mill near Trinity RPC, the tower of the power plant near Carrick Castle on the far side of Belfast Lough, the green trees hiding Belfast Zoo below, the creamy crescent of beach on the other side of Belfast Lough showing Helen’s Bay and Crawfordsburn, the two yellow splay-legged shapes of the H&W cranes, the white dome of the Odyssey, the tower of City Hospital near Queen’s, and out beyond, in the hazy pale distance, the pinnacle of Scrabo Tower near Newtownards, and away out beyond that, the high forbidding slopes of the Mournes, rearing like the body of a monstrous snake on the edge of the world. We ran about on the hilltop, and D found a steep small hollow where we at last sheltered from the wind. We sat down there on the short green grass and D and Logan brought out the snacks they’d carried up in their backpacks. I lay on my back on the warm grass, looking up at the sky. White clouds skirled high over the pale blue, and swallows flashed, black above, copper beneath, dipping and turning, wheeling over our warm place. Wind ruffled the green grass running up to the lip of the dell. At last we moved on. We found another path leading down, after a false start, and followed it down around the bend of the hill, down around its foot, past the cave, and into the woods again. It was about two o’clock. We sat down on a green lawn outside the gates to the castle, under a big pine tree, to eat lunch. The lawn was steeply sloped, scattered with people sitting about, eating, sunning, etc. We ate our PB&J and crisps (everyone makes fun of me for liking salt and vinegar), then drove back to RH. We were back by three o’clock or so. Rachel and EMM were chatting in the common room, and I bounced in and gave EMM a hug, and we wrestled and had a pillowfight to show how happy we were to see each other. :o) After awhile, D, L, and I went to Tesco (we go through bread at an amazing rate!)—EMM had promised to make dessert for a couple of nights. The afternoon was still beautiful, clear and sunny. Back at the house, we lazed around in the common room for awhile. P stole my laptop; I read the latest “World” that D had brought over. L and I fixed tea together: I made chicken and directed her while she fixed raspberry surprise. We had tea at about seven o’clock (the boys went outside and played ultimate with Ian, Matthew, and Andy M.). CMAM and EMM ate with us—good fun, EMM, P, and I horsing around plenty, rehearsing old jokes. After tea, she went to study, and now D, P, L, Logan, and I are sitting in the common room, watching The Mask of Zorro. Ridiculous. The evening is becoming overcast, but still fully light. (9:24 p.m.) – ERN (FB)

second visit, day 3 (first day of real adventures)

24 May 2008. I woke up at seven o’clock. Rachel came and tapped on our door to wake EMM up—EMM tumbled out of bed, still in her clothes, and ran downstairs to start studying. I dressed, did my devotions, then went downstairs for breakfast. D and Logan had already eaten, of course. EMM was sitting in the kitchen, studying. P and L got up eventually. We all fixed lunches and then walked to City Hospital to catch the 8:40 train to Coleraine. For the first half of the journey, I sat with P, L, and Logan. P played songs for me on his MP3 player. He and Logan joked around. Then I went to sit beside D, who’d taken a separate bench. The lush green fields slid past. Everything here looks so much fairer now that early summer is here. White hawthorn, yellow furze, deep green grass, blue sky. The day was perfect, clear, a slight N breeze. On the train there was a little girl traveling with some older relatives. She kept chirping, “The lady dropped her handbag!” to a woman who must’ve been her aunt, and staring at me with big blue eyes. The platform at Coleraine was crowded, but Mr. M was there to meet us, combed and showered, with a warm smile. He drove us out to the farm. The boys were out moving calves between fields, but Erin, Eleanor, and Mrs. M were all in the house. Mrs. M had laid out the table with cups and saucers, and we had tea and scones—delicious. The McCollums made us very welcome. The boys came in eventually, and after we’d finished our drinks, Eleanor badgered all of us with her usual enthusiasm to come outside and bounce on the trampoline. I stayed inside, though, to get directions from Mrs. M. We pored over a map together, she marking the places of interest in neon highlighter. Mr. and Mrs. M had to leave for a funeral at half eleven—I said good-bye to Mrs. M, perhaps the last time I’ll see her. After they left, Erin, Eleanor, and the boys gave us a tour of the farm. Quiet at midmorning, between milkings. Swallows flying in and out under the slanting metal roofs, the smells of grass and molasses mingling in the silage sheds, the sound of the calves. One of the cows had just given birth, so we got to watch the newborn calf take its first steps—incredibly shaky, its legs splayed, its back humped. We all bounced on the trampoline in the back yard, even D. The wind rushed in the sycamore trees and raised rich smells from the grass. The kids played around. I was weary to the bone already…. P and L played basketball in the farmyard while Eleanor chatted with Logan. We said good-bye and left at about half twelve. Mrs. M had marked out the Causeway Coastal Route on the map, and this we followed. The Ms had ensured D on their minivan. D was tense, driving the narrow country roads between the high hedges. We drove past Glenmanus RPC and turned off onto the East Strand. The day was perfect, warm, sunny, hazy, the sea completely calm. Small waves came lapping up onto the shore, teal far out, aquamarine and white nearby. We played around, barefoot, running in and out of the cold water. P and Logan skipped stones; L found a few shells. A couple of little boys were body-boarding. We spent a long while on the beach, then drove on through Portrush, taking the narrow A2, out onto the cliffs, and stopped at Dunluce Castle. The stairway to the bay underneath the castle was open (it’s been closed both other times, to EMM’s great disappointment), so we went exploring under the castle. A steep flight of steps down the cliff-face to a deep steep-sided bay of grass in between the mainland and the castle peninsula. We could glimpse the cave underneath the castle’s peninsula, a low-ceilinged long affair. To Logan’s disappointment it was off limits. P and L scrambled up one of the steep knolls. The sunshine was warm in the deep bay, the wind running down the hill in the long grass, and crows flying out of the ruined stones overhead, wheeling and crying against the clear sky. White butterflies danced over the grass, over purple vetch blooming in the sunshine. After awhile we drove on to the Giant’s Causeway. The afternoon was still pristine. At the Causeway, we ate lunch in the car, then took the cliff path to the Causeway. Glorious day: the path running between the furze bushes was warm, sunshine on arms and neck, cool breeze in my face, cattle and sheep grazing to the right, steep drop and blue sea to the left. We took the cliff across and down, down, down. At the bottom, in the huge bay of the coast, we scrambled around over the rocks. The sea was farther out than I’ve ever seen it before, perfectly calm. Most of the rocks were exposed, so we climbed quite far out, to places normally covered by the great waves. In still warm tidal pools we found prawn larvae squirting from side to side, and orange and burgundy anemones, and long rubbery kelp leaves, and clams and barnacles. It was beautiful, poking about among the rocks. We lingered…. The Causeway itself was mostly exposed. L and I climbed all the way out to the farthest tip, our feet crunching on a crust of white barnacles on the farthest rocks. I stood silently, mesmerized, watching the waves seep and slurp at the stones, kelp leaves weaving in the dark water. The sea was so many colors today: bright aqua in the shallows; copper on the kelp beds; teal and royal blue far out; aquamarine at the very edge, in the curls of the breaking waves. As usual, it was interesting to hear all the different accents—French, Eastern European, lots of British. We walked up the road (usually take the bus) to the tourist centre at the top of the cliffs. It was four o’clock. From the Causeway, we took the A2 on north and east. We drove past Sheep Island View and stopped at Carrick-a-Rede but didn’t go in. We drove on and on, taking the route EMM, CMAM, and I had taken back during inter-semester break. The land was so different now, a completely different face than it had worn in January. The highway wound through tiny towns, Ballintoy, Cushendall, Glenarm, Glenariff, like white beads strung down the road. The road wound up to the Glens of Antrim—highlands that had been windswept moors, grey and brown, barren, full of pools of grey rainwater, hung with mist, were now copper and dun, heather and furze, long grasses bowing in the fresh wind and sunshine. We drove through one of the country parks, dark evergreens on either side, and from there the road began to twist down. We drove along the edge of one of the glens, the place where CMAM had whipped round her hairpin bend, now not slick with rain, but instead under a shimmering canopy of green-and-gold sycamore leaves, the trees arching over the highway. D took in his breath at the scenery. It was lovely. At the mouths of the glens, where the valley came down to the sea, would be a cluster of white buildings, a village, usually each with its harbor. Then the road would wind round the steep face of the glen, and curve into another valley, and then another steep bend, and then another valley, headland and valley, headland and valley…. Green fields on the steep slopes, interspersed with thatch-yellow fields where silage had been cut, hazy gold behind us in the late afternoon sunshine. To the left, the deep blue of the sea, cropped with whitecaps. Seagulls skipped from wave to wave. I saw a tiny island with a lighthouse on it far out toward Scotland. It was beautiful…. Serene, quiet, the highways mostly empty, the villages silent, the sunshine lingering over a still land, like driving through a photograph. At last we reached Larne, and there we turned off onto the A8, which eventually joined up with the M2, and took us into Belfast. I navigated us back to RH. D was relieved to be safely in RH. I started to fix tea in the kitchen at quarter to seven, shortly after we’d returned—Chinese beef and noodles. Logan came in to ask if he could help; P crept in quietly and sat down in the corner with his book, Journey to Ixtlan. We had tea, the five of us, joking around. After D and Logan had washed the dishes, we all gathered in Room 4. D led us in family worship. Then D and Logan went downstairs to read. P borrowed my laptop, but L insisted that we listen to a Gunsmoke episode online while she sat in the window and knitted. I lay on my bed and read the next O’Malley mystery, The Protector, borrowed this morning while we were at their house. At nine o’clock, I told L to take a shower and moved downstairs to the common room. Logan and P are sitting in here, chatting with Dean about mountains, cars, and environmentalism in the States. Dean is being mostly polite, with only a little of his usual sarcasm. Clouds are coming down from the north.

talk talk talk

Now Playing: No one. They're all revising (theoretically).

A certain person has requested another post. Don't have much to say, I'm afraid. I went to the library tonight and found a copy of the Kalevala on a dark shelf in an unlit alcove. I wonder if any of the Native American tribes have epic poetry, and if they put the same weight on words as the Old English poets did. I know they have stories, I just can't find them, aside from the one slim volume that my grandparents gave me ages ago, with odd stories from the Lakota about humanoid animals.

A search on the internet has only turned up gruesome Pawnee religious rites, though one interesting fact is that the Pawnees constructed their longhouses so that they could see the Pleiades through the smokehole. Apparently their life was tied closely to the observance of celestial bodies.

That's a strange phrase: "celestial bodies". If you didn't know much about English, you'd think it meant human bodies that had been modified in some way so that they were "heavenly" or shining or able to fly. Maybe superheroes should be "celestial bodies", not stars, planets, asteroids, and so on. Though of course we have a way of calling people who excel "stars" anyway. Then again, it reminds me of C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader" and the Star's daughter at the end. In the world to which Narnia belongs, stars are bodies.

So it's the Kalevala now. I understand, just from reading the introduction, where Tolkien got the other half of his mythology. Middle Earth turns out to be a crossbreed between Old English and Finnish. The Finnish languages and names, even the spelling and pronunciation, have a familiar ring because I've encountered them already in Sindarin and Quendi. The work promises to be heavy reading, perhaps badly translated into Modern English verse, but if I managed to slog through my thick volume of prose Sagas of Icelanders last summer, I can get through this, and the language is much nearer to home, being part of my linguistic heritage thanks to Middle Earth, than the strange Scandinavian names of the characters in the sagas.

I wonder why C.S. Lewis chose to fill the world in which Narnia exists with so much Greek mythology, and Tolkien chose traditions completely different. Ironic, in a way: Narnia seems much younger than Middle Earth, but the versions of Greek legends we have are far older than the versions of Beowulf and the Kalevala. Apparently oral poets were still making songs in Finnish in the fifteenth century A.D., and Beowulf was written down around 800 A.D., long after Ovid and Homer.

I also wonder how these old legends might interplay with postmodern theories about language. It's interesting that in Scandinavian mythology, runes were so important. Odin lost an eye, they say, in order to buy the power to write. For an oral culture one can only imagine how powerful writing would seem. In Beowulf, runes written on a sword cause Hrothgar to unearth a whole new mythic world, sparking one of the tangents so difficult for contemporary readers of Beowulf to endure.

Postmodern poets put such an emphasis on words themselves and on exploring subjective ways to shape meaning. I've heard professors say that the question is, as in the quote from Alice that used to be on the cover of my Wordly Wise books, "Whether you can make words mean so many different things". The difficulty is that their "poetry" so-called makes words meaningless. The quest for meaning makes it disintegrate into strings of words without punctuation or reference point. One of my professors wisely advised a sort of poetry that forces the reader to deal with unusual word combinations but pauses along the way to let the reader get a foothold in the familiar before leaping away again.

Is it possible for legends and oral poetry to have something to contribute to the postmodern confusion over meaning and who has authority to say what word means what? I can agree with the postmodernists, the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E people, and all that, that it is good to be aware of words, as one is aware of one's physical surroundings, to be aware of their ranges of meanings. But I don't want to let it flake apart into meaninglessness, discarding the idea that words can have meaning and do, by consensus, have definite meanings, no matter where you are. A cat is still a cat: but the connotations will by necessity be different for every person. I simultaneously think of Mandy and a tiger; Rosemary will probably think, "Unwanted two a.m. serenade", and Elizabeth, on the other side of the Atlantic, "Sneezes and itches."

How does an awareness of words themselves shape stories, communication, everyday life? Textbooks, news flashes, movies, novels?

The problem, of course, is that no one really cares. Or rather: No one is aware that they care. When you start to use a word that means one thing in one place in another place, and the people there don't understand you, you begin to realize that the question of words as embodying a variety of meanings actually does have practical implications for everyday life. It can inhibit communication; it can also provide hours of hilarity, or a new perspective on a serious topic.

So why poetry? Because I think it provides a forum for the most directly self-aware discussion of the question. You can sit down and explore meanings in a poem in ways that would definitely be annoying on BBC news. On the other hand, most people don't have a patience to consider the effect the language of a poem is having on them in this much detail.

But there's hope, in an odd sort of way. Doing a paper on Renaissance English made me realize how similar linguistically our era is to the Renaissance, especially in reference to American English, which apparently has the highest coinage rate. English speakers are drawing in new words, creating new vocabulary, exploring new registers, in ways similar to those used during the Renaissance with its demand for new vocabulary to name new commodities from Europe, exotic creatures from the New World, and new ideas drawn from emerging Classical philosophies and Reformation theology. In some ways, we are in a similar position, forced to come up with new vocabulary for internet and computer technologies, trying to deal with globalization, interacting rapidly with other cultures, and creating new subcultures, each one demanding its own range of vocabulary. The hope comes when you realize that the Renaissance produced some of the greatest modern English authors: Shakespeare, Donne, Milton. Perhaps new linguistic self-awareness will result in a similar flowering....

Ah, well, I'll just keep chasing this particular problem by the tail, round and round. Probably end up in knots.

It's about time for Rachel's e-mail break, which means my laptop will be needed soon.

news flash: serious outbreak of contagious disease in Renwick House

Now Playing: "An Ancient Muse" by Loreena McKennitt. Track 3, "Caravanserai".

Warning: Rosemary, you'll need a full-fledged dictionary for this one.

Tonight at tea Andy M., a second-year medical student apparently exercising his knowledge prior to his exams, diagnosed Renwick House with the clinical condition Examination Related Insanity, or, in layman's terms, ERI.

The Warden's reaction was reported to be: "I'm pretty sure I have 'I' year round!"

The chief symptom of this disease seems to be, in Renwick’s case, increased gregariousness on the part of most residents (though for some this is followed by periods of extreme aloofness), as demonstrated by the following examples.

A group of students gathered outside in the car park around one of the kitchen tables, which, having been removed for the barbecue a week ago, has become a permanent fixture in the area behind the kitchen and has been covered with notes, binders, laptops, cups, and empty food containers. Said students have been observed spending all day sitting outside around this table and on the concrete nearby, "studying", some of them leaning against the tyres of the cars parked nearby, others sitting with their feet propped up on the low brick wall between the car park and the back area. In order to control the unruly mob, the Warden has instituted three rules: No Talking, You Must Write More Than Fifteen Words (Emmaline!), and We Go For Ice Cream at Four O'Clock (direct quote from the Warden herself: "Revision is all about the food!").

This final rule has been kept religiously by a selection of Renwick girls for the past two days, specifically the Warden, Emmaline, Linsey, Catherine, and the author of this humble blog, with additions from outside Renwick (Sarah W. and Rosemary), who have been seen marching down Elmwood Avenue in the late afternoon for the past two days to Botanic, where they have queued with half of the rest of Belfast's population at the red ice cream van parked beside the Tropical Ravine. Said collection of girls has been seen dandering back to the house licking ninety-nines, munching Magnums, and eating ice lollies.

In fact, the symptoms of disease seem to be most pronounced in the late afternoon. Just today residents were observed setting up a volleyball net in the car park next door to Renwick's, having tied the net to Renwick's high metal fence on one side, and on the other side having stacked half-a-dozen kitchen chairs on top of a large rubbish bin, and tied the net to the chairs' legs. A lively game of volleyball ensued, with Andy L., Allison, and Matthew against Rachel, Ian, and Andy M. Though afterward Rachel complained of swollen hands and Matthew sent the volleyball crashing into a full cup of tea, baptizing Ian's medical notes, otherwise the residents seemed to extract a great deal of pleasure out of inflicting vigorous wallops on the aforementioned innocent object of their sport as it flew back and forth over the net in a haze of concrete dust in the late afternoon sunshine.

It was noted during the course of the volleyball match that for some reason the disease has prompted all the boys in the house to wear matching reflective sunglasses, a strange manifestation of the malady.

While not all the residents of the house have been quite so seriously ill as to spend all day sitting outside, most of those present have at least spent meal times outside. At lunch and tea, nearly everyone has made an appearance, lounging in the sunshine, eating, dozing, and sunbathing, an indication of the contagiousness of this serious disease. As further sign of the grave condition of the inmates of the house, the conversation at such times turns on completely trivial topics: the influence of Andy M.'s yogurt with seeds on the digestive system, Emmaline's purportedly strange middle name, and Matthew's theory that "if I can't see it, it doesn't exist" in response to Rachel's questions on the shared properties of wind, the Holy Spirit, quarks, leptons, and gravitons have all been discussed at points in the not-too-remote past. In addition, a great deal of mockery of dialectical differences has also surrounded mealtimes. One resident (wouldn't know who this would be, now would we?) has been observed laughing hysterically over the use of "while" in phrases such as "A while good time" and "A while lot", and correcting the pronunciation feel for fail by her not-so-innocent roommate, as well as drawing great satisfaction from mimicking the use of glottal stops in the Warden's pronunciation of words such as butter and water.

Meals indeed seem to be prolonged by the disease. Certain girls, namely the Warden and the author of this post, were seen sitting in the kitchen drinking tea and eating biscuits for half-an-hour after their appointed time to return to their studies, and had to be soundly rebuked by Andy L. for such procrastination.

Yet another symptom observed in the house has been a sudden rash of pranks played on the Warden, executed by certain of the boys. As someone in the house said, "They have too much time on their hands!" Whether this outburst of misapplied creativity is due to an excessive amount of hours in the day or to the madness induced by disease cannot be acertained; however, it is certain that strings of toilet paper, vaseline, ladders, and boys' boxers have all appeared in the Warden's demesne at one point or another, to her disgust.

Another bothersome indication of the disease has been the pile-up of dirty dishes in the house sinks. Apparently the disease inhibits one's physical abilities to clean anything. The most obvious physical effect, however, has caused only slight consternation: Nearly all the residents have pronounced cases of sunburn.

In conclusion, the public is warned to stay well clear of Renwick House in the coming weeks since this disease has proved to be highly contagious, as demonstrated above. Anyone traveling to the area is warned to take extra precautions to avoid contracting ERI.

last day of class

Now Playing: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack by Howard Shore. Track 1, "The Prophecy".

9 May 2008.

In some ways, just like every other day, and not really very exciting, though there was banana bread for breakfast this morning. I went to my last class at ten o'clock, ENG309, and sat through a two-hour lecture about William Tyndale and his translation of the Bible. Then I went to the gym to run, though I got some horrible shin splints.

Walking back through the Gardens was eerie in some ways. Earlier this week the weather was beautiful, warm and sunny, in the 70s Fahrenheit. The Gardens have been absolutely packed with people, the bowling green giving off the same murmur as would come from a crowd, and people in every nook and cranny. Today, though, was still and overcast, like walking around under a thick comforter, so there was hardly anyone on the green. The rhododendrons have started to bloom in full force, profusion of red and white flowers.

Back in Renwick, I found EMM, Rachel, and Andy M. sitting in the kitchen, talking. When I came back from my shower, they were still in the kitchen, though this time Andy M. was showing them cricket techniques (Andy L. would have been shocked and horrified, but it kept us laughing). I ate lunch. Nathan showed up to do small group planning with EMM, so I took my laptop and notes outside to the table that was left in the car park after Monday night's barbecue. It wasn't as pleasant to sit outside today as it was earlier in the week, but quiet at least--pigeons fluttering in and out of the attics of the flats across the street, and seagulls wheeling slowly against the grey sky. I worked on my papers until about half three, until I could hardly see straight, then went inside.

EMM, CMAM, and I ended up going to Cafe Renoir, down Botanic. The cafe was unusually quiet. It's a very large place, occupying a couple of the row houses, and going up three or four stories--all sorts of levels, and odd nooks, and dim, cool spaces, low-lit lamps hanging over wooden tables, richly-colored upholstery on chairs and benches. We took our food upstairs and sat at a table in a back corner. We basically just sat and talked nonsense quietly for an hour.

I worked a little bit more on my papers back in Renwick, then at half five went down to the kitchen to help Emma and EMM cook tea. Tonight Ken Ham was speaking at the Waterfront, and Emma, EMM, Robert, Steven, and Jonny were all going to hear him--the boys were coming round at half six for tea before the talk, and Emma had agreed to cook for Andy L., Samuel, Matthew, Rachel, Daphne, Rosemary, CMAM, and me as well. We boiled pots and pots of rice. We had creamed peppered chicken, rice, and bread, all of us sitting around the common room. Matthew's laptop was out, and we looked at marathon pictures and discussed the times of the various teams. There was ice cream for dessert, and then one by one, people started to leave--the group going to the talk; the boys about their business; CMAM up to study; Daphne and Rosemary, after awhile, to go home to Donegall. I left Rachel miserably trying to motivate herself to study. I listened to Chris Thile and washed dishes.

I went upstairs at nine o'clock, intending to work, but didn't get much done. I sat and thought for a long time. Read through the black book that my friends in the States had made for me before I left. Holding three places together in one's head is so hard.... It's like staring at a maths equation, trying to make the factors reconcile, when they just won't (like the allusion, Emmaline and Rachel? :o).

CMAM came downstairs to see if I wanted a cup of tea at about ten o'clock. We made tea for ourselves and Rachel, and heated up slices of banana bread. Rachel was buried in a sea of notes and binders in the common room. CMAM and I stood in the stairwell, talking for about half-an-hour. Poetic symmetry: As we had begun our time in Renwick way back in September, talking about Heaven, the night when it was just the two of us and Andy M., watching CSI, in the house, so we ended our time in Renwick, now, talking about Heaven again.

At about eleven o'clock, the group came back from the talk. Robert and Emma made tea and found biscuits somewhere for everyone to share. Simon, Matthew, and Dean appeared from somewhere, and we all sat around in the common room, talking. EMM and I nearly fell asleep in the corner. Robert, Steven, Emma, and EMM left to go home to Culleybackey/Coleraine at about midnight, and I, dodging Dean's threats to interrogate me about America, escaped upstairs to go to bed.

And, to finish, a good quote: "Sleep in peace! Do not trouble your hearts overmuch with thought of the road tonight. Maybe the paths that you each shall tread are already laid before your feet, though you do not see them." - Galadriel, The Fellowship of the Ring

some variation

Now Playing: Mark O'Connor, "The Fiddle Concerto".

Seems to have been an unexplainable dearth of poetry on this blog. For an English major, and one who writes poetry at that, this is inexcusable. Therefore:

First of all, slightly out-of-season, and for sheer pleasure's sake, with no ulterior motives,

Queen’s Quarter, Belfast, October
10/07

Autumn here becomes a wakeful bustle:
Trees clot the streets with crisply-cluttered scraps,
And people, swirling home from work and school,
Scuff through the sloughing scales, sheer serpent-gold.
Late summer’s sleepy shadows, sprawling blue
From endless afternoons of hoarding sun
And billet on the town, yawn, stretch, and slink
Into the brooding dusk, and disappear
Behind the whirlpooled whir of winging trees.
The deep, warm dragon-days leave in their slot
Slick sidewalks pressed with gold and umber leaves.

I get so frustrated with academia....

Badminton
4/08

Whisk, whack, swish, flick,
Quick shuttlecock flit back and forth.
Racket raised, reach and clutch,
Players leap, bow, dip and dodge.
Click, click, crisp-flown fletch,
Words gone bouncing, net to net,
Ecofeminism, academics, bourgeoisie,
Neologisms flicked from lip to lip.
The intellectuals posture, strike a pose,
A stance, another argument or masquerade—
Watch them fly, falter, slip and duck,
Dodge the meaning, dither, add a phrase.
Conversation tips from hand to hand,
Book or journal where the sets are played,
Conference, lecture, paper, match by match.
Keep the racket poised, the shuttle flown,
Tense the wrist, serve, jump to volley up,
Postcolonial, postmodern, postromantic,
Socialism, symbolism, sectarianism,
Pause, paraphrase, and postulate—
Then quick flick back.

And something more hopeful to finish with.

Ruins
4/08

Each wall lies broken: stones, piece by piece,
Fall, crushed, and crop in crumbled heaps. Sills,
Thresholds, gables, gutters, ledge by ledge—
This protected, barred the winter back,
This kept warm and pleased the architect,
This grit, dirt-dust, gravel ground to ground.
This, us: our pieces scattered here,
No wall but broken stones in flaying flakes—
No understanding, our brittle words gone dry,
Our mortar chipping even as we try to patch
Our shattered selves together, to each other,
Yet cut and scrape our stones with every shard.

When the architect will come again,
He will see the heap, this ruin, where stones
Wound stones and stones crack into dust—
He will restore, will see the remnants’ pieces,
And will rebuild, join stone to broken stone,
Stone to itself, and stabilize our walls
To stand, not just repaired but recreated,
Increased, enlarged, and strengthened, stone by stone,
Our shattered frames re-formed, re-joined and whole.

C4441

May 5, 2008.

This morning I woke up very reluctantly. Outside the morning was clammy and foggy, not at all what I’d expected, and it didn’t help my mood. I wasn’t looking forward to running my 7.1 mile leg of the Belfast marathon at all. After I dressed, I crept downstairs, got breakfast (the house was very quiet), then came upstairs and did my devotions. By eight o'clock, the house was full of people, mostly boys—Andy L. had registered a couple of teams for the marathon, and lots of other guys seemed to be about. We had to go downstairs eventually, though, to find our numbers and bags for the things we wanted before or after we ran. As the boys trickled out, girls started to trickle in. Naomi, Sarah W., and Lindsey Montgomery showed up. The boys were mostly gone by now, taking their noise, leaving their mess of kit bags and clothes behind in the common room. We pinned our numbers on each other’s shirts and got ready to leave. The girls are in two teams, Run Fat Girl Run (CMAM, Rachel, Naomi, and Daphne), and Go For Renwick House (Sarah, EMM, me, Lindsey, and Charlotte). The first team was supposed to have Sarah R. on it, running the first leg, but she had to work, so her brother was going to run the leg instead and hand the bracelet on to CMAM (her brother David and her father were both running the full marathon). Since Lindsey, Rachel, Naomi, and I were running legs that started far away from the city centre, we set off together in a hurry to catch the bus to our starting points, while Sarah, EMM, and CMAM made their way in a more leisurely fashion to the city centre, and Daphne waited for Charlotte, who wasn’t out of bed yet.

We stepped into a grey, moist morning. Fog hung thickly over the Queen’s campus. We walked up Stranmillis Road, not exactly sure where we were going, found a side road, and took it down to the River Lagan, where we crossed and walked up toward the football pitches—a long walk. Lindsey and Rachel were sure we were going the wrong way; Naomi was sure we were going to miss the bus, so she pushed us to run. We jogged along Ormeau embankment. The water was dark and still in the river below, one swan moving up the water. We crossed a main road at a bridge and jogged on toward Ormeau Park, and finally reached the buses. They were starting to leave. Rachel and I scrambled onto our bus with a sigh of relief. The ride through the city was excruciatingly slow. Traffic was bad because the marathon route mostly takes main roads, so the bus had to go around through neighborhoods and estates. Cave Hill was shrouded in deep cloud, and as we climbed the rises toward it, the city centre down in its depression was hidden in mist also.

We finally reached our destination, a stretch of road near a shopping centre, where people were lined up on either side of the road. Thick crowds of people. I was amazed by how many are involved in this event. Rachel said that last year about 14,000 were listed as participating, and there were plenty of other people along the way to give out water, first aid, etc. We pushed our way through the crowd to find our section, the 4440s, where we were to stand and wait. Rachel’s team was 4440, mine 4441, and both of us were Cs. The first marathon runners began to go by, wearing their red number badges. Everyone was shouting and cheering, clapping, encouraging them on. Then masses of relay runners with blue numbers, searching frantically for their partners through the crowds, stripping off the little yellow bracelet, and handing it on. Some of the relay runners were dressed in crazy costumes—a guy in a Superman suit, boys in fairy wings, people wearing unusual hats, like a carnival.

We looked frantically through the crowd for our partners. Rachel was busy texting people: there had been a mix-up with her team’s bracelet. David R. had run on with the bracelet since he hadn’t seen EMM or CMAM; CMAM had run after him, then come back after ten minutes, then been sent on by EMM, without the bracelet. While we were trying to sort this out, Mr. R ran past us, shouting my team number—I ran after him, calling his name, but he didn’t hear me, and since I wasn’t sure what was happening, I let him run on. Turned out later that he had actually been the one carrying the bracelet—he managed to hand it on to EMM and CMAM on the final leg, when they were standing and waiting by the finish line, so that they could give it to Daphne to finish with. In the meantime, though, everything was in shambles, and Rachel was confused. A cold wind had started to blow down from Cave Hill, beginning to lift the fog. CMAM finally found us and sent Rachel running on. CMAM was pink, but not too out-of-breath, and together we stood and waited anxiously for EMM.

Runners went past… and past…. Philip M. went past, pushing Matthew in a wheelchair, to everyone’s amusement (Matthew was wearing an enormous helmet, and the wheelchair was decorated with plywood painted pink). More runners went by. Walkers went by, and stragglers, here and there. Almost everyone was gone from the stop by now, having run on. CMAM and I were both worried and started to pace down toward the nearer end of the road. At last I spotted EMM, running slowly up the hill. CMAM and I shouted her name and cheered her on as she jogged up to us, panting, red in the face. She took off the bracelet, I strapped it on my wrist, and was off, with their cheers ringing in my ears. I put on my MP3 player and listened to the FOTR soundtrack as I jogged up the hill… and on… and on….

It actually didn’t seem to take that long. Up through little pockets of village, through neighborhoods, past petrol stations and corner shops. People were standing in little knots at corners or behind garden gates, watching, cheering us on. The whole community seemed to be in evidence. Once or twice children stood in the middle of the road with arms wide so that we could give them high-fives as we passed. I jogged past water stands, where Styrofoam cups littered the road, tumbling white paper scraping the street. The route wound through neighborhoods, then finally hit the Antrim Road, and the long, steady climb up Cave Hill. Belfast Castle came sooner than I’d expected, looming overhead against the dark trees, rearing up forbidding battlements. Then the long stretch under the beautiful overarching sycamore trees to the left, and the steep drop to the right, Belfast Lough hidden in fog. I stopped to walk for the length of a track, then jogged on. At last the route turned off at the peak of the hill, and I was running down through neighborhoods. Down and down and down, until at the bottom of the hill, the route took an upward turn—I had to walk again there, briefly, but at last the route turned into Gideon’s Green, wound through the park, and took me to the relay trade-off, where Rachel and Lindsey were waiting. I handed the band on to Lindsey, and she ran on.

Rachel called EMM to tell her that I’d arrived; I paced, breathing lightly, my muscles unwinding. We finally started to walk toward the place where the buses left to take us back to Ormeau Park. We walked along Belfast Lough, the path right by the lough, the small waves lapping against the shore. The fog was beginning to lift, and the sea shone pale silver-yellow under the white wall of mist. We walked up through the green, through little lawns scattered with daisies surrounded by birch trees, and to the buses. We sat and sat on the bus before it left, and the ride itself took for ages as well. Rachel and I were both exhausted. I split a Mars bar between the two of us. By the time we got to Ormeau Park, the sun was fully out, and the day was fine and hot. We got out near the finish line. The route before the finish line was lined with people, and all the way up through the park, through the gates to the finish line, people were standing, clapping, cheering, urging the runners on. Rachel and I found EMM and CMAM sitting on the sidewalk in the sun, and joined them. Naomi and Sarah W. showed up, too. Beyond the finish line, well inside the park, a carnival had been set up, with stands for food and amusement rides and such. People were picnicking on the grass. We cheered the runners on as they went past us. Daphne came by, and Rachel ran with her to the finish line. Amy went past, running for a medics team, and CMAM hurried to meet her at the finish line. Charlotte flashed past also, and EMM, Sarah, and I ran to find her.

Once we were all joined up again, we all went to sit in the sun on the sidewalk, Naomi, Charlotte, Sarah W., Rachel, Daphne, CMAM, EMM, and I. We ate jelly babies and wine gums and cheered people on. Sarah W. had been ill on her leg and wanted to go home for a shower. So Naomi, CMAM, EMM, Sarah, Charlotte, and I finally said good-bye to Rachel and Daphne and walked back to RH. The afternoon was gloriously beautiful. Blue, blue sky behind young leaves, vivid yellows and greens and blues. Along the Stranmillis Road, everyone was outside, sitting at the cafes and restaurants, talking and eating. Back at RH, though, things were pretty quiet. Most of the windows and doors were open, as though the house were breathing. The boys had gone out to Pizza Hut. The girls were taking showers or resting. Rosemary and Andy L. were in the common room watching snooker on TV.

We went our various ways. I took a shower and then had lunch (at 4:00 or so), then lazed about for awhile. At about five o’clock, though, CMAM, EMM, and I went downstairs to the kitchen to start working on the barbecue. EMM washed dishes; I sliced and fried peppers and onions; CMAM grated cheese. We listened to music. The warm afternoon sunshine slanted in through the open windows and doors. We worked fairly quietly, the three of us. Eventually Rosemary and Rachel started to heat the barbecue and cook the meat in the ovens. Then people started to arrive. There must've been between 30 and 40 all told, and there were plenty of boys who’d been on various marathon teams who came for the barbecue, whom I didn’t know. Boys drifted through the kitchen, where all the girls were hanging about, talking and preparing food. Sarah, Charlotte, and I ate early, in the midst of all the preparation chaos, burgers that had been cooked in the oven.

Anyhow, as all the uproar was going on, the girls taking the food outside to the buffet table and the boys hanging about talking or getting in the way generally (useless!), EMM, Sarah, Charlotte, and I left for the QUB centenary celebration at half seven. Andy L. came with us, randomly. The evening was spectacular, clear, aquamarine and pale green. Tonight was just the dress rehearsal of the centenary celebration. We went into the Great Hall, where we were put in a group together. A costumed actor came out eventually and spoke to us in the style of a high steward, looking down his nose and being very elegant, welcoming us, etc. In our small group we began the tour of the various performances. The whole tour was punctuated, between each performance inside one of the stuffy, dim rooms of the Lanyon Building, by walks around the campus, as we went from performance to performance—beautiful walks, made lovely by the warmth of midsummer eve, the pure sky hanging over us and the sunshine lingering in the chestnut trees along University Road. The choir performance in which Sarah and EMM were singing was the grand finale of the tour. We returned to the Great Hall for this—a piece written specially for QUB, to celebrate the centenary. The acoustics in the hall were brilliant, the voices echoing clearly around the high rafters, which were borne on the backs of wooden angels. It was a good piece, unusual, sung accapela.

Afterward, we left fairly promptly to get back to RH for the Psalm sing. The house was still in a crowded tangle of people, but Rachel managed to get everyone upstairs to our room. Beulah said she’d never seen our room so full before. Phil led us, with Sarah R. and EMM precenting. Afterward, I chatted with Joel about summer plans. Said good-bye to him, the first good-bye…. Talked with Phil and Naomi about LOTR (everyone always gets very excitable in these conversations!). Downstairs people were having tea and finishing off the last of the desserts.

Renwick weekend, Sabbath

Now Playing: DEF and Rosemary (still!).

April 27, 2008.

This morning I opened the curtains to a spectacular spring morning, and went downstairs to the common room to do my devotions, tiptoeing gingerly around damp reminders of last night’s water fight. I had finished my devotions and was fixing breakfast when Andy L. came in through the back door. He’d had cricket all weekend, but was up for Sabbath day. I told him that no one else was up, and he laughed and went upstairs whistling and shouting, “Wake up, everyone!” When I went upstairs at eleven-fifteen to see if EMM was ready, she was, just up. Everyone assembled downstairs about five minutes later, plus Rosemary, and we walked briskly to church. We were late, of course, though the elders were patiently waiting on us before they started the service. EMM and I sat in one of the long, rib-curved pews on the right toward the front, under one of the great lance windows. Today was Shaftesbury’s mission Sabbath, so before the sermon, Andy M., who had also come up for Sabbath day, spoke for fifteen or twenty minutes about the work in Nantes. After he was done, he came and sat with EMM and me, and made me incredibly nervous by doing so. Whenever we stood to sing, I could hear my little reedy soprano chirping between Andy M.’s powerful bass and EMM’s equally powerful alto, and felt very awkward. After the service, all of us RH people were ushered upstairs to the fellowship hall. Ten or twelve long tables had been set out down the hall, neatly decorated with little pots of pansies, and with the best china set out in our honor. For the most part the RH people didn’t do a very good job of un-clique-ifying themselves, but it was so encouraging to watch Pastor McKay making the rounds of the tables, welcoming and speaking to everyone. Of course, after lunch there was dessert. Amusing: Rosemary, CMAM, and I went up together, and I was at the head of the queue. I asked for some chocolate trifle from the little old lady who was serving. There were four or five spoonfuls left in the bowl, enough for at least two people, but she heaped it all into my bowl. Completely abashed, I moved to the next lady down the line for some ice cream. She looked at me, then it, and said, “Would you like me to put some of that in another bowl?” “Yes, please,” I said (Rosemary snickered behind me because of the relief in my voice). So the woman moved some over, but it still wasn’t very much—I gave more to Rosemary when we got back to the table. Of course, Rosemary and CMAM teased me about being a pie. As we were leaving, Rachel and I had the brilliant idea that we go to Botanic for a Psalm sing. As soon as Rachel asked him, Pastor McKay obligingly disappeared in search of Psalters, and returned with enough for all of us. We all walked back to RH. People changed clothes, and there was about half-an-hour’s quiet time. EMM and I sat in our room. She did her devotions; I lay on my bed and tried to read Desiring God. At about three o’clock, we went down to the Gardens. My breath was taken away by the loveliness of the gardens: in front of the statue of Lord Kelvin, a bed of bright gold primroses and lilac-colored hyacinths was blooming in perfect chequered pattern; overhead, an enormous cherry tree was bowing under clouds and clouds of white flowers. The gardens were crowded with people. Students, couples, parents pushing strollers, families, schoolchildren, people walking dogs, a red ice cream van. The bowling green was thick with people, boys throwing Frisbees or kicking footballs, couples lying on the grass sunbathing, children toddling through the crowd. We eventually found a place on a green lawn under the huge pine tree across the path from the rose garden. EMM, Rachel, and Daphne spread out their blankets on the grass. We were all there: Matthew, Andy M., Andy L., Samuel with his back against a young beech tree, Ian, Daphne, CMAM, EMM, Emma, Rachel, Rosemary, and me. One of the girls brought out a box of popsicles. We lounged around for awhile, quietly, everyone’s moods expanding in the warm sunshine. Rosemary shuddered when a huge German shepherd walked past, and all of us gasped and laughed when an even bigger dog, a gigantic fluffy black beast that must’ve stood at least three and a half, maybe four feet, ambled by. Rosemary giggled in my ear, “I was so scared just now when I heard someone shouting, ‘Sabre! Sabre! Come here!’ because I thought it must be a really massive dog, but then I turned round and it was a little terrier.” The breeze stirred the beech tree above us, rippling the patterns of the sunshine on all the leaves. “Ever notice how all the leaves seem to be different greens?” EMM asked dreamily, “All different shades, but one color.” Behind us, the sun shone through the red taffeta young leaves on the rosebushes, and the breeze ruffled the branches of two cherry trees, weighed down with their glory of deep pink and white blossoms. After awhile, we opened our Psalters and had our Psalm sing. EMM precented: 19A to 220, her request; 66A to 254, Andy L.; 24 to 292, Daphne; 103 to 124, CMAM; 121 to 88, Rosemary; 124 to 279, Andy M.; 139 to 14, Rachel; 91B to 90, Emma; 145 B to 289, Ian; 84B to 264, me; 72 to 80, EMM. We sang reverently but kept the pace up, and with EMM’s alto and Andy M.’s tenor, and some of the other boys adding bass, we had a good group. Andy M. closed us in prayer. We lounged around awhile longer. Matthew and Samuel climbed all the way up to the very crown of the beech tree, its slim branches bending whippily under their weight. After they’d come back down, Ian gave it a try, only to be told off by a couple of park wardens who happened to be going by. “That’s not fair,” Rachel said under her breath, but everyone, including Ian, laughed it off. Someone suggested we try another human pyramid—and this time, that Ian go on top. We tried it a couple of times, but it didn’t work too well with the boys on the bottom, so EMM, Daphne, Rachel, and Emma went on the bottom, with CMAM, Andy M., and me next, and Matthew and Andy L. after that, and Ian on top. Rosemary stood back and took pictures. The whole business was ridiculous, everyone laughing, scrambling, groaning, and shouting for everyone else to hurry up. Once Ian was on top, we lasted about two seconds before the whole wobbly thing came sliding down. Emma was completely flattened; I was flung off to one side; CMAM was squashed, and the boys on the bottom row were nonexistent, but no one particularly minded, and we all picked ourselves up off the grass laughing to try again. This time the boys were on the bottom row, and it worked pretty well, except that CMAM couldn’t for the life of her climb to the top, and Emma’s knees kept slipping, so it all collapsed in a heap again. Then we mucked about, the boys turning handstands and cartwheels, while people stopped to stare and laugh at us. At about half five, we packed ourselves up, brushed ourselves off, and walked back to RH. Emma and I walked together, chatting. Back in RH, CMAM, Rachel, Daphne, and I fixed sweet-and-sour chicken with rice for tea. Andy M. sliced the pineapple to add in. Emma worked on making rice crispy buns, melting Mars bars, then stirring in a big box of rice crispies, while Ian was given the job of buttering the pan. He and Andy M., taking a personal interest in the business, suggested layers of melted marshmallows and melted chocolate on top, so with Daphne’s help, and an extra sprinkling of nonpareils, Emma made the very first batch of Renwick buns. When they were finished, we cleaned and set the tables. Twelve of us sat down to tea, and afterward, Andy M. produced a cake out of his cupboard, and Emma produced ice cream out of her freezer drawer, and Rachel made tea, and we had a generally scrumptious time. We had five minutes to get ready for church, so there was another scramble out the door, but on our way down to Shaftesbury for church at seven o’clock, Daphne, Rosemary, Rachel, and I ran into Cliff. Rachel persuaded him to come to church. Church today was upstairs in the hall. Again there was a missionary speaker before the actual service. After the service, the members of Shaftesbury served us with shortbread and tea. CMAM and I went over to sit by Rachel, Daphne, Cliff, and Ian. After Shaftesbury, we left cliff off at his place again, and walked on up to RH. In RH, everyone sat around in the common room. Matthew had his laptop out and showed Andy M. the “amazing” picture he’d drawn on Paint—he and Andy M. made up all sorts of ridiculous artistic symbolism for it. Andy L. hijacked it to look up origami patterns, and taught EMM and Daphne how to make swans with pages torn out of an Argos catalogue. Ian and I brought down our laptops so that I could give Ian my pictures. Everyone wanted to see pictures, so I shared my laptop around. Matthew discovered one of the discarded caps from the bottles of bubbles (which were now completely empty), and flicked it across the room. This began a royal battle between he and Andy M. on the far side and me, Rachel, and Ian in the bay window. There were four or five caps lying about, and we flicked them across the room fast and furiously. The five of us were royally enjoying ourselves, especially Rachel, Matthew, and Andy M., who flicked the caps at each other so that they pinged off the walls. Amy came by to deliver some things for EMM and CMAM, and later, Phil arrived, and then Deborah, to Emma’s delight. Phil went upstairs, but Emma and Deborah went into the kitchen, and at eleven o’clock we had a “girls’ midnight feast” (the boys all went to bed). Good to be almost complete complement again, me, Deborah, Daphne, EMM, Rachel, Emma, Rosemary, and CMAM. Emma had Minstrels, gummy fish, popcorn, squares of white and bubbly chocolate, and tea for us, and we sat around asking Deborah questions about her weeks of teaching practice, and teasing Deborah for getting hyper on Coke. Good times…. CMAM went up to bed early, but the rest of us sat on until half eleven. Since the dishtowels were still wet from last night’s escapades, we had an excuse not to wash the dishes, but we cleared the table and said our good-nights, a good weekend over. EMM and I lay in bed chatting for awhile after the lights were out.

Renwick weekend, Saturday

Now Playing: Rosemary and DEF (Daphne).

April 26, 2008.

I woke up at nine o’clock, slept more, woke again, and got up at about ten. EMM was sound asleep. I dressed and tiptoed downstairs with my laptop to the common room, where I did my devotions sitting in the window. The morning was cloudy, and as I sat reading, rain came down, silvering the sidewalks. As I was typing up yesterday’s entry on my laptop, Ian came in. We were all supposed to be going to brunch at noon at Springsteen’s down Botanic, but of course no one had made an appearance yet, so we sat and laughed at everyone. At about noon, Emma arrived, fresh off the train. We filled her in on the fun so far, and when we told her about the breakfast plans, she plugged her iPod into the speakers and got some energetic music going. Daphne and CMAM came downstairs, and the three of them bounced to Room 2 to wake Matthew by singing at him through the door. Pretty soon, everyone was up. Outside, the rain had blown away, and a warm spring morning was glowing through the young elm leaves. We practically frolicked to Botanic, the girls singing down the sidewalk, to the amusement of passers-by. At Springsteens, I sat in a booth with CMAM, EMM, Samuel, and Matthew. After breakfast, we danced back to RH again, the girls swinging their feet in step up Elmwood Avenue. Back at RH, EMM, Rachel, CMAM, and I piled into EMM’s car. The afternoon was warm. We drove up the Lisburn Road to a butcher’s, where we stopped to buy meat for the barbecue tonight. It was a bit strange to walk into the shop with its white walls and gleaming tile floor, and the long counter full of stacks of red meat, while in the back we could see two men hacking up big joints of meat with cleavers. Rachel and EMM ordered a dozen burgers and a dozen sausages. EMM took the meat back to RH to start cooking it, while the rest of us walked down to Tesco to buy other necessities—bread, sauces, dessert for afterward, etc. In RH, while we waited for the meat to finish cooking, I crawled upstairs and lay down for about half-an-hour. I was just drifting from doze to deep sleep when Daphne called me. We were mostly ready to go. Emma bravely elected to ride with Ian, Matthew, Simon (who was along for the afternoon), and Samuel, while Daphne, Rachel, CMAM, and I went in EMM’s car. The girls’ car had to stop to buy charcoal and lighter fluid somewhere. We made a tour of several garages on our quest, and at one of them, EMM, Daphne, and Rachel ran inside and bought drinks and sweets, while CMAM and I sat in the car, listening to Coldplay. Daphne had bought popsicles, sour apple on the outside, purple pear on the inside, with a stripe of pineapple ice cream twisting around the outside. We finally found a Tesco that had charcoal and lighter fluid, and from there it wasn’t far to Crawfordsburn Forest Park. At the beach, the others were throwing a frisbee and a nerf around. The beach was fairly empty. The afternoon had become overcast. Out on the lough, three huge tankers were standing at anchor. A sailboat went scudding down the bay like a white butterfly, and a motorboat churned up the water closer to shore. The beach stretched in a long brown line from the eastern headland, over which we’d climbed from the parking lot, and which was crowned with a ridge of tall sycamore and oak trees, to the western headland, which again was crowned with tall trees, but which also had houses built along it, and sprawl of low grey rocks beneath it. Simon suggested we try to build a human pyramid. Of course the boys were on the bottom row, then Daphne, Rachel, and EMM, then CMAM and Emma on top of that—theoretically, but Emma and CMAM kept sliding off and choking the row of girls under them as they tried to stop themselves, so it didn’t work very well. We did succeed in making an all-girls pyramid, with me on top, and then we tried again, but we never could get a pyramid with everyone in it. So the boys went back to throwing the frisbee around, and the girls had a round of ankle wrestling, which EMM won hands-down. All of us stood in a big circle and threw the frisbee around—the boys threw it as far out into the ocean as they could so that Daphne and Rachel would have to run, squealing, into the icy waves to rescue it. After awhile, Simon suggested shoulder wrestling. So everyone paired up and climbed on each other’s shoulders: CMAM on EMM’s, me on Emma’s, Rachel on Daphne’s, Samuel on Simon’s, Matthew on Ian’s. It was a wobbly, ridiculous process, lots of screaming, squealing, and apologies, at least on the girls’ side. We swapped around, and I ended up on Rachel’s shoulders. We were fairly successful in staying “alive” until Matthew and Ian snuck up behind Rachel, at which point both Rachel and I went sprawling in a laughing tangle in the sand. Us girls played a game of freeze tag, and finally we organized ourselves into a game of ultimate nerf (exactly like ultimate frisbee, but with a nerf instead). Ian, Matthew, Emma, EMM, and I were on a team together, “Two boys, two wee girls, and one big girl,” as Rachel put it. Ian and Matthew turned out to be a fairly unstoppable combination, especially with EMM to help them out, while Emma and I scurried up and down in the “endzone” to catch the nerf in case Matthew was being covered to closely by Simon. We had a blast, running up and down the sand, shouting and jumping. The sand was full of pockets of crushed shells, places where the waves had tossed up millions of tiny yellow and black fragments, which didn’t make running very comfortable, but no one minded too much at the time. We played until it started to get ominously dark in the southwest. Ian and Samuel went to fetch the barbecue, while Rachel, Daphne, and EMM went to bring the car around to the closer car park. Left alone, Simon and Matthew mucked about on the beach. CMAM found the bottles of bubbles that she and I had bought at Tesco, and she, Emma, and I sat huddled on the edge of the embankment above the beach, on the footpath, blowing bubbles, and watching them skirl away over our shoulders, through the fence and onto the golf course behind us. The wind off the sea was fresh and cold. Simon and Matthew came running up eventually to snap at the bubbles and then sit huddled nearby. CMAM found Daphne’s blanket among the pile of stuff left on the edge of the footpath, and she, Emma, and I stood together inside the blanket. We waited and waited. At last the girls showed up, having gotten a bit lost on the way. They’d brought down one load of things. Daphne, CMAM, and I went back to the car to bring down another load while everyone else looked for a more sheltered spot than the open beach for our barbecue. Daphne, CMAM, and I went up the footpath, down a little narrow lane between high hedges smelling greenly of summer, up a broader lane between vacation houses, and into the car park. I pulled on a hoodie, my own windbreaker, and Daphne’s big school jacket, in order to stay warm. When we went back to the beach, the others were nowhere in sight—until we were down on the beach, and then we saw them, under the western headland, in a perfect little nook made by the rocks. Samuel was scrambling about over the boulders nearer to the sea, while Simon and Matthew were amusing themselves by squirting lighter gel on the coals, making flames shoot up. The wind made the coals smoke and made it difficult to keep the fire going, and when the boys put enough gel on, the wind whipped the flames into a venomous-looking miniature maelstrom, which usually only burned itself out quickly. In the west the clouds began to move away, and the western sky went pale peach and aquamarine behind the trees. When the coals were hot enough, EMM and Rachel put on the burgers. Simon and Matthew, their outlet for pyromania taken away, went to join Samuel on the rocks, and Ian was given the task of slicing cheese with a plastic knife. The meat didn’t take long to cook, and soon we were all eating, the meat smoking in the buns. Sausages came next. We stood around the grill, warm in our little hollow in the rocks. People walking down the footpath above us glanced over the edge at the smell of the smoke. A dozen teenagers, very drunk, staggered down the path, shouting to ask if they could join us. Simon said something politely, but Matthew yelled, “No!”, which made the kids laugh and move on. We watched them in disgust. One of the girls, who must’ve been very drunk, went swimming, though she was only wearing her pajamas. A little later, a girl riding a gorgeous chestnut pony came cantering onto the beach. Daphne and I watched, mesmerized, as the pony went in easy loops, its hoofs thudding softly on the sand. Someone further up the beach let their dog loose, though, and it chased the pony, so the girl had to take it off the beach. The wind had died down, and suddenly through the clouds the leveling sunshine came striking, a vivid, luxurious gold on the eastern headland: the trunks and rocks were copper, and the leaves burned gold, and the water was deep grey-blue. The tankers out to sea flashed white. When we’d finished our main course, Rachel produced marshmallows, biscuits, and roasting sticks. We had s’mores, marshmallows between chocolate-topped biscuits. Sticky and delicious. When we finished eating, the boys ran out onto the sand to throw the frisbee around. Rachel, Daphne, EMM, and CMAM eventually took the nerf. Emma and I sat by the fire, though, to stay warm. Slowly the rich light died from the far headland, from the beach, from the water, the shadows gradually lengthening. Emma and I started to collect the leftover food and rubbish into bags. I spotted EMM washing her shoes off down at the waterline, so I yanked off Daphne’s jacket and sprinted over the sand to push her in—we had a good-natured wrestling match in the water, both of us in almost to our knees at one point, and my shoes soaked. When we turned around, we saw Ian and Matthew coming running over the sand to join us, carrying CMAM between them to throw her in the water. She was squealing, and everyone was laughing—they only set her down on the sand in the foam. Rachel and Matthew had a seaweed fight, flailing at each other with long rubbery pieces of kelp, while the rest of us finished cleaning our campsite. We packed up the cars and drove back to Belfast. As the road curved up over a headland, we got a glimpse of the sunset: the deep living blue of the water below us, the black shoulder of Cave Hill sprinkled with orange lights beyond, and behind that, a saffron sky, aquamarine and turquoise above, patterned with a few deep grey clouds, leftover from the morning’s rain. Back in RH, we unloaded the car. Most people sat around in the common room, but Emma and I took quick showers. When I came downstairs again, I sat next to CMAM in the common room, and we took out the half-empty bottles of bubbles and blew them. Rachel and EMM drew an imaginary line across the carpet and played bubble tennis, blowing big bubbles back and forth, while the boys enthusiastically popped all the little ones. At about half ten, we had dessert, apple strudel hot out of the oven, with custard and tea. EMM polished off the custard, eating the last several huge spoonfuls out of the big serving ladle. We debated what to do next. Simon suggested “one-two-three-I’m-free!”, basically the racing version of hide-and-go-seek. By fiat Ian decided that CMAM was it, and sent her up to Room 9 to count while the rest of us spilled out into the street. The clubs were in full swing in the Students’ Union and at The Parlor, so there were taxis and people going up and down, but it was quiet enough. It was long past twelve by the time we were all collected and sitting on the steps in front of RH. Samuel and Matthew started to try to climb up the doorposts to the ledge above the door. I gave Rachel, EMM, and CMAM back rubs by turns. A few pale stars gleamed down at us through the elm trees. We finally went inside and sat around. Somehow or other, a water fight started, Ian and CMAM throwing water all over each other with shouts and squeals of delight, and everyone cheering them on. At that point, I went up to bed.

Renwick weekend, Friday (again overdue, and by request)

Now Playing: Daphne ("Daphers") singing along with Josh Ritter (at Rosemary's instigation).

April 25, 2008.

This evening, everyone who was staying for the weekend, plus Andy L., assembled in the common room, everyone being me, EMM, Rachel, Daphne, Ian, Samuel, and Matthew. We tried to decide what to do for tea tonight. Rachel suggested that Daphne ring up Domino’s to see what their meal specials were, so Daphne rang them on her mobile, to everyone’s amusement: “Heya, whassup, D-d to the ‘omino’s?” and after a gangsta-style conversation, “Catcha lata, homedog!” We all burst out laughing as soon as she’d ended the call. While us girls got on the internet to think of options, the boys got impatient and went outside to play frisbee in the street. We finally ordered three larges from Domino’s. I had offered to run up the road to buy chips. Daphne and EMM couldn’t be bothered to move, but Rachel came with me. We had a good brisk trot up to the chip shop, where a cheery lady served us our order, and then we stopped next door at a Mace to buy drinks and marshmallows. Back at RH, the pizza had arrived. We pulled our chairs into a circle in the common room and ate. Matthew kept the conversation interesting, coming out with all sorts of random questions (“Anyone have an embarrassing pizza story?” “What sorts of animal noises can you make?”) and facts (“Did you know that giraffes don’t have vocal cords?” “Did you know that if you get more light, you feel more awake?” this after he’s been up for thirty-eight hours!). Daphne rang CMAM, and we left her a voicemail worthy of a zoo, with Daphne, Ian, and me meowing, EMM making a cow-style moo, Matthew attempting an elephant, Rachel braying like a donkey (for which she was slagged mercilessly), and Samuel adding a random “Woof!” on the end. We slagged each other off mostly. Ian made fun of me for being an American, which joke continued the rest of the evening, rather to my disgust. Everyone made fun of Rachel’s accent. We sat around until about eight o’clock, when we cleared up the room and got in cars to drive to Dundonald to go crazy golfing. EMM, Rachel, Daphne, and I took EMM’s car, and Matthew, Samuel, and Ian took Samuel’s car (Andy had cricket tonight). We pulled out first, and EMM handed Daphne and Rachel her MP3 player, and pretty soon we had some cool beats going. The girls were all dancing and singing along, excerpts from Lion King, Princess Diaries, High School Musical, and just about anything else they could find worthy of dancing. I sat in the front seat and laughed and laughed—and held on for life as EMM swung round corners and zoomed up behind taxis. Rachel and Daphne had the whole car shaking as they danced in the back seat, and they all burst out laughing when we pulled up beside a policecar. People in other cars stared at us, and Rachel and Daphne grinned and waved. The crazy golfing is at the same place as the ice skating rink, but it’s outside, with a pirate theme—canons and weird totem poles and palm trees and the like. We were split into two teams. Daphne, Ian, Matthew, and I were on a team. EMM, Rachel, and Samuel went ahead of us. It was good fun. After crazy golfing, we drove to McDonald’s for ice cream. The boys trailed behind us, so we sat in the car and listened to “Chasing Cars” by SnowPatrol. The car windows fogged up as we sang along. When the boys arrived, we went in to order—the restaurant was crowded with tweens and little kids (who ought to have been in bed!), all of them running around, talking in shrill harsh voices, laughing, and so on. We ordered our mcflurries and sat quietly at a table, watching the mayhem around us. “I think we’ve raised the average age in here by ten years,” Ian joked. On the drive back to Belfast, more music, Prince of Egypt and more. A carful of boys pulled up beside us (not “our” boys), and “smoked” us. Daphne and Rachel were screaming and laughing in the back seat, begging EMM to smoke them back. We did, a couple of times, and then they pulled past us and blew us kisses, to the great delight of the girls in the back seat. Back at RH, we assembled in the common room. CMAM had come up on the late train, and she was back, too—we’d brought her ice cream. Rachel and EMM produced bags of sweets and Articulate!, and we split into two teams for a game. Ian, Daphne, CMAM, and I were together; EMM, Rachel, Matthew, and Samuel were together. At first our team was winning, but after two rounds we lost by a hair’s breadth. Ian made fun of me for knowing who Mendelssohn was, and Daphne and I laughed because we both knew who Paul Newman was. Ian had brought down his iPod, and Rachel had brought out her speakers, so we had a random selection of Ian’s music—Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Coldplay, U2, and a whole pile of ones I didn’t know—to keep us company. I was absolutely exhausted. Once we’d sorted out lunch tomorrow, I said good-night to everyone and went upstairs to bed.

Renwick formal (by request, and long overdue)

(CMAM is Catherine; EMM is Emmaline; RH is Renwick House)

April 24, 2008.

At about half four this afternoon, my preparations for the formal started to get underway in a lackadaisical fashion, compared to the racket in the room next door. Linsey, CMAM, and Heather were all in Linsey’s room, tittering, giggling, chattering about fluffy things, putting on makeup and fake tan, straightening and washing hair, and so forth. I went in and lounged against the wall, offering advice, and generally laughing at the chaos. At about six o’clock I trailed into our room and dressed. EMM came in. She’d gone home on the train at lunchtime, picked up the car, then picked up Alistair, and taken him to Mark’s house to get ready. I helped her and Rachel with safety pins for their dresses, and did my hair. At seven o’clock, people started to emerge from their rooms, and the others who were to be at the dinner—players on the football team, former residents, friends—started to arrive. The common room and stairwell were crowded, girls in their dresses, boys in slacks and jackets, everyone slightly nervous. Robert and Andy M. drove Rosemary and me to Barnaby’s. By now the afternoon storm had blown over, and the luminous evening sunshine slanted over the deep green fields, lighting every blade and leaf. At Barnaby’s, we had been assigned to a room on the ground floor—a medium-sized room, semi-circular, with windows all round, and five long wooden tables. Rich red carpet on the floor, dark paneling under the windows, black-and-white pictures of old sports teams on the walls. The boys made beelines for their own tables, and, partly as a result, we were soon segregated into tables—two tables of all boys, two mixed tables, and one table of all girls. People came in groups, in waves, by fours and fives, as carloads arrived. We had an absolutely lovely time. As people arrived, there was mixing at first, girls fluttering between tables in their dresses, taking pictures, exclaiming over each other’s outfits. Slowly people settled down. Phil stood and gave thanks, then the waiters brought out starters for those who’d ordered them. I was sitting between Lizzie and CMAM. Lizzie and Daphne, sitting across from each other, mostly talked to each other during the meal, giggling and making silly hyper jokes above (or below!) the rest of us. Heather, Linsey, Rosemary, Naomi, CMAM, and I chatted pleasantly through the meal. When the meal came, it was sumptuous. After dessert, Iwent over to chat with Michaela and Sarah W., to listen to Charlotte and CMAM tell funny stories, to see if EMM and Rachel (perched in one of the deep windowsill) needed help finalizing the powerpoint for the table quiz. Before the quiz, Phil stood up and got everyone’s attention. He handed out awards to the guys on the football team, making speeches with each one, and keeping everyone laughing with his dry, sometimes scathing, humor. After the awards were given out, some of them serious and some of them silly, Rachel split everyone into pre-determined teams. The segregation that had separated boys and girls earlier was thrown to the wind as everyone was put into different groups of five or six. I was with Heather, Allison, Andy L., and Steven. Rachel and EMM ran the quiz from EMM’s laptop. The staff of the restaurant had obligingly provided a screen for the projector. The first round was my picture round (Steven was disgusted that I couldn’t help). Then a music round, provided by Linsey off a CD used by her church for youth group games, then anagrams from names of residents and friends of RH. Then a Cranium round, each team given a card from the “star performer” box to act or sing or hum, and finally a football round with trivia from the past season. Our team came last, and I think the boys were a bit disgusted, but it was alright after all. After the quiz, of course, we had to have a round of pictures. We all milled around, but people eventually sorted themselves into rows, all of us short girls in the front, of course. Bob climbed on a table, while the boys cheered, and took pictures of us all—when Beulah asked him to take one on her camera, everyone booed. Then there was a RH picture, which Mark and Steven invaded, and then a RH girls’ picture, and a picture of the football team. After the pictures, we all stood around talking. The tables were a mess of papers and dishes. Michaela, Sarah W., and I took silly pictures, and CMAM took pictures, trying to finish her disposable camera. The waiters began to move about the room, clearing the dishes. We collected our belongings, said our thanks, and trailed out to the cars. The evening was cold, a taste of frost in the air. Just about everyone ended up back at RH. Rachel and Daphne had their black-and-white Halloween masks out, and Beulah screamed when she came through the door and saw them on the stairs. Everyone else laughed, though it was quite creepy to see them dressed up with the masks on. Mark, Rachel, and Beulah fixed tea for everyone. Emma had buns leftover from a camp meeting, Malteser and caramel and shortbread concoctions. I sagged onto the seats in the window with Naomi, CMAM, Linsey, and Rosemary, all of us exhausted. I finished my tea and pattered quietly upstairs to bed. Liney’s perfume, squirted on me and CMAM at the beginning of the evening just before we went out the door, lingered in the air even when I’d taken off the dress, sweet taste as I drifted off to sleep.

studying so hard...

... that I'm seeing WHITE RABBITS!