Now Playing: Sufjan Stevens, "Come Thou Fount."

The sun finally came out on Friday! I woke up, and the roofs were dusted with a fine mesh of crystalline snow, but the sun was shining. 

Campus manages to look beautiful all the time, but afternoon sunlight brings out the clearness of the limestone best, I think. This is Memorial Hall, where my medieval literature class meets this term.

I'm falling in love with Felix Mendelssohn again. He's so happy, particularly on dreary days like today, which has come at the end of a string of dreary days. I'm not sure I've really seen the sun all week....

 Nevertheless, there's hope. Snowdrops are coming up in Scott's yard under the crab apple tree.

His cat Blanche remains disgusted with the weather--poised on a stepping-stone, trying to stay out of the wet grass. It was her idea to go outside....

Lisa made an amazing meal for us tonight: marinated chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and a pear-and-onion salad contributed by Mary. Then she baked this enormous cake for dessert, three layers with icing packed between each one. Thomas, Eric, Scott, Mary, and Peter came over.

An opportune moment: a terrible ice storm is brewing outside!

Bob installed Scott's new bookshelves last Thursday. They fill the south wall of the living room, floor-to-ceiling.

Even in winter, Dunn's Woods are lovely. I walked through them on my way home from teaching this morning, and the pattern of the branches against the morning sky--the clouds from yesterday's cold front have finally dispersed--was so intricate.

 

Often on Sunday afternoons, I'll walk the southern portion of the B-Line. It's about four miles round trip. Today the snow we had earlier this week was still lying lightly on the ground under the shadows of the trees.

First day of classes here at IU. My alarm went off crisply at half six, long before anyone else was awake. It was pitch-black outside still, the full moon setting in the west and shining through Lindsay's window (her bedroom door was open since she's still gone).

I managed to fit in breakfast, scanning over lesson plans, replying to a smattering of e-mails, and quiet time before leaving the house at twenty past eight. This semester I teach at five past nine on the third floor in Ballantine, in a room much less sleek and glossy than the room I had last term. When I opened the door, twenty-two blank, dazed faces glanced furtively at me. I tried to smile at them, but my hello-you're-strangers-don't-eat-me smile isn't very convincing. Need to keep working on that.

Class went well on the whole. Picking up on Dr. E's unorthodox methods, I decided to ask my students to go by last names this term. Everyone is "Ms" or "Mr." We'll see how that's received. I'm hoping that it will make the classroom feel slightly more professional. Since Mary and I are teaching the same syllabus, centered on the theme of monsters, I used an opening exercise with a Zombie Uncle Sam image, which actually generated some interesting discussion about nationalism vs. individualism and the connotations of black-and-white as opposed to colored photography.

Highly relieved to be done, I swung out of the classroom ten minutes early (first day never takes full time) and walked to Scott's house. The morning was pristine: a sky almost autumnal with the depth of its blue, air perfectly clear, almost warm, and birds beginning to sing again everywhere. Cardinals, mourning doves, sparrows, chickadees, birds that have been silent for the past couple of months. At Scott's house he met me on the front step, and we walked around looking for daffodils. They're beginning to shove their way through the damp earth already.

At home again I spent the rest of the morning working on lesson plans and writing e-mails, tidying up loose ends. By the time I ate lunch, I'd finished everything on my task list for today, so I spent the afternoon luxuriating in Anathem by Neal Stephenson. The book ate me alive. So dense, though, that I couldn't take it all in at once, so I dozed some, worked on wedding plans some, and then practiced my flute for the first time in months. Bach sonatas. Gorgeous. The book left me sitting in the dark in my room, head in my hands, thinking hard about the possibilities of parallel universes, Christianity, and C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy.

In the midst of this, Laura shouted upstairs that tea was ready. She, Lisa, Lindsay, and I ate tea together for the first time in months. Delightful. Laura had made corn chowder, and we sat around and narrated our Christmas holidays to each other. Afterward we curled up on the sofas and had our "family" Christmas. Wee fun presents--scarves, jewelry, stationery, wacky or weird things that make each other laugh. We sat around, giggling over our presents for awhile.

At about nine Scott came over. He and I chatted with Laura for a bit, then went upstairs. Told each other about our days. Wedding-planned. The usual.

This makes me smile every time I come into my room: BOOKS.

I've spent the past couple of days being somewhat lazy at Scott's house. He's been in Chicago, so I've been keeping an eye on the cats, nominally at least--they don't particularly like to have an eye kept on them, in typical cat-fashion, and I prefer not to have their eyes kept on me (ever been stared at by a cat? creepy--always stare back). But I've been studying theory for my next medieval literature class (already!), e-mailing up a storm with Mary as we prepare our syllabus for W131 this semester, and reading Anathem by Neal Stephenson. In other words, I'm a book-stealer, the worst sort of guest to have: Scott left his novel behind, just started, and I picked it up and am now over four hundred pages in.

Today Laura and I have been playing with wedding invitations. Rather, she's been playing, and I've been reading and stressing out by turns. Oh, the joys.

Now Playing: Tchaikovsky, The Nutcracker, "Final Waltz and Apotheosis."

Back in Bloomington now, and nothing has slowed down, it seems. At least not in some ways. Planning, planning, planning, and I find myself struggling not to live life as though it's a series of tasks to be completed. Before we left Stillwater, I found a wedding dress, and Alyson, Mary, and Laura now have bridesmaids dresses, so that's one item off the checklist. I was staunchly resolved at first not to let our pastor's wife help, but she offered to assist in the search for a reception venue, and since planning this wedding has turned out to be somewhat of a herculean task, I've been so grateful. It's probably really not that much of a task; it's just that the pieces haven't really started to fall into place yet (aside from bride, groom, minister, and church, that is).

On the other hand, it is good to be able to work on all of this. And to have a quiet house, wake up late, read Tintin comic books over breakfast, and cook for Laura, Scott, and co. Soon everyone will be back, but for now it's pleasant not to be surrounded by people. Quiet, time to think.

Now Playing: Girls in the study.

It's been awhile since that last post, unfortunately. I'm seeing a trend here: last post near Thanksgiving break, this post during Christmas break. Perhaps more regular posting should be a New Year's resolution.

The past month has been eventful. Scott proposed the week after Thanksgiving, after talking to my parents during Thanksgiving break. I knew he was talking to them, and that it had gone well, but I had no idea when anything was going to happen after that. It felt rather like falling off a cliff. Ever since then we've been wedding-planning on and off. Wedding-planning made the ten-hour drive to Tulsa for Nicole's wedding pass much more quickly than usual.

Nicole's wedding was on 18 December at Christ Presbyterian Church in Tulsa. I was one of five bridesmaids, two maids-of-honour, and three junior bridesmaids. Quite a production. It was beautiful, though. Perhaps that's what we're supposed to say about every wedding, but her wedding really was lovely. The lovely awkwardness of watching her walk down the aisle, hardly able to bear looking up at Matt, hardly able not to look up at him. The elegance of her lace dress, of the white lilies we were all carrying. The quiet fitness of them standing side-by-side at the reception afterward. Their calm, in stark contrast to the bustling, noisy, jewel-colored hurricane surrounding them.

After scrambling around all weekend, returning to Stillwater brought a welcome break. We basically spent the weekend chilling out at my family's house. Laura, Stephen, Scott, and I would go for walks or sit in the living room, reading. Laura cooked lots of delicious food. My mother, Laura, and I shopped for wedding dresses. And so on.

On Thursday Scott and I drove up to Ponca City for Syneva's family's annual ball. Bittersweet: Amanda, Syneva, and I were the only RUF people there. Everyone else has moved on. Also, Scott was totally overwhelmed by the prospect of dancing and spent the night up in the stands, watching. It was still really good to get to see Syneva and Amanda and to hang out with Syneva and her family afterward.

Christmas here was extremely laid back. My father's parents came over Saturday night and Sabbath day for lunch, and we opened presents Saturday night.

Peppered throughout all this, I've been getting to see friends. On Monday, a trip to Enid for tea with Katie, Missy, Mr and Mrs W, Elizabeth, Anna, and Ruth; later, coffee with Sarah; yesterday, a scavenger hunt around downtown, particularly in the antique mall, with Elizabeth and Scott; today, coffee with Jenny. 

And today... the infestation began! At least, that's what my mother called it, with her best good Fearing humour. The cousins, minus Uncle Kirk, drove up from Texas to spend the week with us. The girls and Peter just finished watching the latest Dr. Who episode; Aunt Lisa and my mother are sitting in the living room, knitting and talking; Scott and my dad are reading, and so forth. Full house, fun times.

 The annual Christmas ball in Ponca City, 22 December--the Fairfield Fancy.

Lilies from my bridesmaid's bouquet from Nicole and Matt's wedding, 18 December.

Another musical weekend: on Friday Scott, Carmen, Bob, Eric, and I (we were only a small part of what turned out to be a large grad student contingent from across the disciplines) went to see IU Opera's production of La Boheme. Scott's opinion was that they should all have gotten jobs, which was a fairly accurate assessment of the plot. Brendan, one of Scott's friends, wondered where the old Classical idea of unity of action has gone, and I'd tend to agree. Maybe being forced to include a whole plot in a 24-hour time span would help librettists make stories that were more interesting. (But do operas really need plot?)

Anyway, the music was gorgeous, and the theatre department made full use of the stage's capacity. At the beginning of the second act, the set unfolded like a piece of elaborate origami, both rotating and moving forward on two enormous smooth turntables set within one another. Quite impressive.

On Saturday we went to a performance by the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra, a semi-professional group made of people from the community. They played Brahms's first symphony, which was absolutely amazing. It's a monumental, brooding piece of music, in C minor, with a beautiful hymn tune in the fourth movement and some wonderful violin and flute solos in the second and third movements.

And now it's back to work, for a brief time at least. I'm slogging through my twenty-five-page seminar paper. Outside it's raining, and the air smells like wood smoke, which always reminds me of Northern Ireland. Tomorrow Scott and I leave for Oklahoma and Thanksgiving festivities with family. Grading in the car, woo hoo!

The images below are from last Monday's field trip to the Lilly. I'm working on a project for the seminar class on late medieval literature, a project having to do with the Pieta in Books of Hours (and other sources--Margery Kempe, Thomas Hoccleve, John Lydgate, etc.). Scott came in with me to see what he could find in the Lilly's holdings for crusade narratives, but we spent most of the time examining these lovely, lovely illuminated books.

Posts have been woefully sparse since school began. My apologies. Here is a brief rundown of today. Maybe you'll get a taste for what life has been like this fall. 

25 October 2011. Very tired today. My own fault, I suppose. It is rather demoralizing to wake up just over five hours after you went to sleep, to a world that looks almost exactly the same: pitch-black outside, pitch-black inside. Shower, e-mails. LMB made baked oatmeal for breakfast, which was delicious. By the time I stepped outside to catch the nine o’clock bus, the morning had become spectacular: lapidary, crisp, the sky brilliant, leaves and lawns infused with yellow sunshine. I walked briskly from the bus stop to Weatherly, where my office is, and met for about five minutes with one of my better students about the essay due tomorrow. Then I walked to Scott’s house. As I walked, I thought hard about the final project for L758, my late medieval literature seminar, for which I'm hoping to write a paper about theories about absorption in art, and about late medieval Books of Hours.

At Scott's house, Blanche, the white cat, greeted me. Scott was just leaving to meet with his adviser, so we stood outside and chatted for a bit before he left. He has very kindly given some of us keys to his house. I went indoors, curled up on the living room sofa, and dozed for about half-an-hour. The old furnace purred up through the 1930s-vintage grates, the white sunshine fell in still oblongs on the dark hardwood floor, and the cats rattled their food bowls in the kitchen. Eventually, I went back outside to sit on the patio and read my Bible, Isaiah 6 this morning. The passage worked oxymoronically for me: reading about God's holiness, I was struck by His nearness, by the parallel between the hem of His robe filling the temple and the woman in Mark 5 touching the hem of Christ's robe and being healed.

Scott came home, and we sat on the back patio, talking over tea/coffee in the cool autumn sunshine. Blanche tried to poke her face into our cups but was deterred by the steam. At about half eleven, Mary came over. The three of us went inside, ate lunch, and discussed our seminar readings for this week about Pearl. Then we walked to campus for class at one o'clock.

Seminar today lasted from one until four. After the seminar I stayed in the classroom with the other half-dozen grad students who are also in Old English from a quarter-past-four to half five. Today we had a midterm exam. I had studied thoroughly, I thought, but there were still a couple of questions out of left field that made me flounder. Oh, well. Nothing I could do about it. At half five I went to another talk for W501, this time by an expert in teaching composition. She led an engaging workshop. 

Mary and I ducked out at the end to drive out to the Cs' house. For Bible study this semester, we've asked women in the church to present to us once or twice a month about their life experiences, testimonies, lessons, etc. Mrs. C had graciously offered to host us at her house and lead the first of these talks. The Cs are quite lavish in their hospitality. Everyone came tonight: Carmen, Courtney, Cindy, Laura, Lisa, Mary, and even two Chinese girls, Lilly and Charlene. Mrs. C was as upbeat and joyful as ever. Afterward she and her daughters served pumpkin pie and apple pie to us, and we all stood around and talked.

When we got home, I went straight up to my room and sat down to answer a stack of student e-mails: questions about and a draft of their essay due tomorrow. Now it's time for bed. It will all begin again in the morning. Tomorrow I need to translate a long passage from Bede for Old English on Thursday and start reading the York Mystery Plays for seminar next week. Also in class I'll be given a nice thick stack of essays to grade.

Now Playing: Antonin Dvorak, "New World" symphony.

Photos of our house-painting party this past Saturday are in this album, and photos from Bob's birthday party are in this album.

Now Playing: Haydn, Concerto in C Major for Cello and Orchestra.

This piece has been stuck in my head all evening, which is my own fault, because I've been listening to it over and over again. Scott and I drove up to DePauw last Friday to see Yo-Yo Ma play, and this was one of the pieces he performed. It was a glorious day: high autumn, quintessential autumn, fields of stubble running smoothly into forest-eaves gilt and garishly colored like the painted rafters of a medieval parish church. Blue sky. Intense sunshine.

Yo-Yo Ma is quite a performer. His presence fills the auditorium when he walks onstage. He likes to talk a lot and make jokes, and while he plays he nods and winks at the audience or at the other musicians onstage. The concert hall at DePauw's music school has surprisingly excellent acoustics. The strings sounded amazingly warm, hospitable, joyful. Yo-Yo Ma also played one of Bach's suites for unaccompanied cello and an andante by Tchaikovsky.

Last week was an insanely good week for music. In addition to the Yo-Yo Ma concert, on Wednesday a group of us (Courtney, Matt, Mary, Eric, Lisa, Scott, and me) went to a performance by one of the IU symphony orchestras. They played Dvorak's "New World" symphony. Glorious. Almost every time I hear one of these orchestras play, I remember why recordings simply aren't good enough. The recorded pieces even out the tambres of the instruments, hide some parts, distort dynamics, etc., so when I hear a live orchestra play, the piece always has far more richness and depth--startlingly more, in fact.

Then the Saturday night before, we went to see Cosi fan Tutte, a production put on by the IU opera. A Mozart comedy: simplistic plot, cynical ending, good music.

Now Playing: Flook, "Haven," "Souter Creek."

Appropriate music for today: it's been raining all day. Rain, rain, rain. Tiny yellow sweet gum leaves on the wet sidewalks, pressed and curled like baby hands, and vivid scarlet-and-gold sugar maple leaves bright as headlights through a window, and brown-and-yellow elm leaves furled like sherds of pottery.

Work, work, work. I'm trying to do a better job of preparing my students for their second essay, which is due on Friday. Being observed on Wednesday doesn't help the stress level, unfortunately.

Another perfect autumn evening happened today when Scott and I came back to my house from medieval Latin reading group. It was just starting to sprinkle outside as we walked in the door. Laura sat against the sofa, facing out onto the back patio through the open door, reading. The house was quiet. Scott and I started to make tea for my housemates, Cindy, Mary, and Eric. Since Kroger's cilantro selection left much to be desired, Scott had the delightful job of picking out the slimy or brown leaves from the bunch, while I chopped up chicken and marinated it in buttermilk.

Chicken curry was the main item on the menu tonight, straight out of an Indian-food-made-easy cookbook I bought at Borders in Chicago. While the wok heated, I diced tomatoes and onions, furiously trying to have them ready before the butter in the bottom of the wok started to spatter. Scott and Eric stood by, watching. In the living room, Cindy, Ethan, and Laura were chatting.

With Scott and Eric still keeping a lackadaisical eye on me, I sauteed the onions and garlic with cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, cardamom, and turmeric. Then tomatoes. Then, when all of that had become this sweet-smelling, bubbling mass, I added the chicken, and it all bubbled away together. Mary arrived, exuberant, flailing, uproariously energetic, and set about making a pear-and-spinach salad.

Just before the curry finished simmering, I threw in the actual curry powder, and Scott added the fresh cilantro. While we waited for it, we munched on the salad, and when at last it was ready, we all sat around the living room, cradling our bowls of warm, creamy curry and rice, and drinking the rich, red wine Eric had brought. Rain spattered on the patio behind us, and a north breeze swirled through the still-open patio door.

But inside everything was warm, fragrant, rich. We all sat around and talked, planning a trip to the opera sometime in the next few weeks, discussing books, etc. Laura and Mary cooked up a scheme for making a B-rated horror film. To follow the curry we had a red-wine-and-chocolate cake Laura had baked, with delicious fluffy icing.

After tea, Ethan, Lindsay, Scott, and I drove to the IU Auditorium for an orchestra concert at eight o'clock. We scuttled through the rain, keeping our heads down against the chilly wind. Inside we found that we were joining a stream of people into the auditorium, up through the tunnel from the atrium into the auditorium itself. Red plush seats, gold railings, gilt trim around the stage.

The orchestra played three pieces tonight. The entire second half of the concert was Camille Saint-Saens's Symphony No. 3 in C minor, "Organ." Fantastic (medieval Latin fantastic-us , late Latin phantasticus , < Greek ϕανταστικός , < ϕαντάζειν to make visible (middle voice ϕαντάζεσθαι , in late Greek to imagine, have visions) OED) in the true sense of the word: Gothic, evocative of Jane Eyre and The Hunchback of Notre Dame rolled into one--perfect for a stormy September evening.

In highschool I used to listen to this piece over and over, imagining all sorts of wild, grim, Scottish-Highlands-type stories to accompany the music. Yet I love the opening of the final movement, and indeed the whole final movement, with its resolution into clarion, bell-pealing, golden-toned victory. The organ, of course, helps with this, with its bold, clanging chords, as do the strings, which have incredibly difficult phrases to play as they build anticipation. Such a great piece.


After the concert Lisa, who had joined us after class, and the rest of us met up with Peter, who's sitting first chair in the orchestra right now. We all congratulated him on a job well done before making our way home through the rain.

Laura, Lindsay, and I watched The Pianist this evening. Now I want to listen to lots and lots of Chopin, and maybe Beethoven's "Moonlight." A gut-wrenching production, though not quite as intense as Schindler's List. Having seen both those films, I think I'm finished with World War II tales for a little while.

Every time I watch a World War II film, it makes me wonder what would happen if that were to happen here, now, again--what we would do, what would become of us--not just our society as a whole, but my small network of friends and family. A natural reaction, I suppose. The images of burned-out, bombed buildings make me shiver with the closeness of such a happening. I look at my cozy townhouse and know that one packet of explosives would reduce it in a few seconds, adding it to that landscape of past and future ruins.

Laura and I were musing after the film about how World War II really isn't that far away. It still looms over our cultural landscape, even as other wars have begun to replace it in immediacy. I sometimes think that the Holocaust is the nightmare of academia, and that that is what drives gender and race studies--the fear of such brutal discrimination returning.

For most of my class of freshman composition students, though, World War II may be much more in the shadowy past. Laura has a great-grandmother who endured the war in a concentration camp in Latvia; I have a grandfather who was at Normandy. Losing that generation will mean losing perspective. Even though films can't capture the horror of that war, at least they force me to remember what is at stake when something like that arises again. And they prompt me to be thankful for the comparative peace I enjoy now.

This past week was crazy but good.

Last Friday, Syneva drove up from Nashville to visit. It was really wonderful to get to see her. She, Cindy, and I went out to dinner at a Turkish restaurant. Though the evening was really too warm to sit outside, we did, and we ate delicious minty soup and grape leaves. On Saturday, Syneva, Scott, and I braved the heat again in order to go to the Fourth Street Festival, where we saw works by all sorts of local artists--woodworkers, painters, sculptors, glass-blowers, leather-workers, potters, etc.

On Monday it cooled down suddenly, so Laura organized a bonfire to celebrate the beginning of autumn. We have a fire pit behind our house, which served the occasion perfectly. Laura bought a big bag of enormous marshmallows for us to toast. Grant G., Peter, Nathaniel, Eric, Cindy, and Scott all joined us.

Then Emmaline flew into Indianapolis on Tuesday evening. Scott and I drove up to the airport to collect her. It was as though no time at all had passed since we'd seen each other; we picked right up with catching up on each other's lives. She stayed until Friday afternoon. Whenever I wasn't in class, we were doing things together: shopping at the mall, visiting Nashville to look at the artisans' shops, hiking Lake Griffey, exploring the zoo, or eating with friends from church. Scott even cooked a delicious pasta sauce for us one evening.

Yesterday afternoon was the church outreach picnic. Since I'm on the outreach committee, I helped set up, which took a solid couple of hours. During most of the picnic, I played with the small children, which was my designated job. Mostly that meant pushing Jane on the swing and opening bottles of bubbles and packages of chalk for the kids. It also meant that I got to talk to their parents--Wes and Angie, Amy, Minda--which was quite pleasant.

So it's been a wonderful week for hanging out with people, but now I'm a bit behind on school, so tomorrow will be an intense reading day.