Sunday, March 25, 2018

Unconfidence, speaking grace and really good cookies



Last week I struggled with feeling unconfident. There was nothing obvious to cause it - the sun was out and beautiful, I'd been accepted by two master's programmes and two scholarships and faced a choice between the two, I could run again with Jacob rather than sticking to yoga for shakey limbs, and I'd had good reports from my supervisors on the terms work. Life was, on-surface, 'supreme' as Lily in The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips (gosh that takes me back) would say. 

But for some reason, like this unanticipated sudden malicious thought I had last year, I felt incompetent, ignorant, unfit and ugly this week. 

I looked at the choice between the master's programmes and didn't see the blessing of having that choice, I saw my own fear and the thought of being lonely and lost and overwhelmed in a big city, among people I would fail to connect with (pessimistic assumptions) and a field I've never been officially schooled in.

I looked at recovering enough to actually be able to run again and didn't see the grace of being reconnected with my favourite sport but worried over how much slower I am and how breathless I got.

I looked at my supervisors comments and didn't see their confidence and pleasure in me but my own absolute confusion on how I did it - and how I'll do it for the exams - and felt like a fraud.

I looked at my self and didn't see the person God has fearfully and wonderfully made as his child but saw a girl who sometimes wants her mid-teen body back before it put on womanly weight, before her face filled out, before her thighs touched. 

I am thankful that I can speak to people I love and trust about this - talks with Alex, Jacob and Semine really comforted me. And even though I didn't mention it to her Emma's prayer that I'd remember I am a child of God echoed Jacob's words when I told him how rubbish I felt and reminded me of how God speaks through his people to his people. God's grace coming through words is something I've been holding close to my heart and my irrational mind to make my unconfidence to face off with God's truth. It has come through the words I read in the Bible and hear in John Piper's Solid Joys:

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6–7)

It comes through the words spoken over me by people, like Semine reminding me that I've done moving and finding my feet, learning and adjusting and being independent once coming to Cambridge and I can do it again going to London. Like Jacob reminding me that he thinks I am beautiful inside and out and wishes I would see that too (I wish I could see that too). Like my friend Ella's instagram art gallery on body images - in which people contribute a picture they've drawn of their bodies accompanied by some words they want to say about their body. The pictures have been heartbreaking ('Trying to feel better about my body but every time I look in the mirror I feel sick') and heartwarming ('You only get one body...So you might as well start loving it.') and philosophical ('Sometimes I behave like I hate my body, but I don't. I think I'm just rather confused that I have one.') and funny ('My eyes are as big as glitter pots') and remind me that bodies are just wonderful. They come in so many shapes and sizes and do so many things. In some ways the fact that we think about them so much is ridiculous because they are just there, but in other ways it isn't because they are so important and work so well. If I thought more about the functionality and uniqueness of my body instead of comparing it aesthetically to other bodies I'd have a far better relationship with it - after all, my body isn't made to be a still aesthetic but a moving, living, functioning, BODY.

This morning I went for a short run and the creeping 'ugh I'm so unfit' thought began to play in my head but instead of a) dwelling on it b) trying to ignore it c) trying to overcome it by running faster, I decided to speak grace to myself.

'You may think you're unfit but God sees you as fit for his purpose

and I thought that over and over again, to the rhythm of my falling feet, and it was good.

In between dinner and reading about narrative in film I made the best damn batch of cookies I've ever made, adapted from this recipe.

Mix together:

1 mug white spelt flour
1/2 mug whole wheat spelt flour
1/3 mug rolled oats
1/2 mug coconut sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp vanilla bean powder (thank you Nat!)
Lots of chopped chocolate
(Unlike the original recipe I also added in sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, cacao nibs and chopped nuts (walnuts, almonds, brazil nuts, cashews and pecans))

In a separate bowl, mix:

1 tbsp ground flax
1/4 mug melted coconut oil
1/2 mug oat pulp (left over from making oat milk)
1/2 mug plant milk 

Chill the cookie mix in the fridge for at least 15 mins while you heat the oven to 180 degrees celcius, then bake the cookies in batches for 20-25 mins. The recipe said it made 9 cookies but I made 9 large ones and 15 small ones so hers must have been massive. (which I won't argue with because they are so good you'll probably want a huge one) I had one while looking through 1930/40s films to watch, and then headed back to the kitchen.

A second cookie? Don't mind if I do. I think I have enough grace for that.

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Bits of last week



1. Friday: Catching the last of the warmer weather we've had this week, Alex and I cycled down to the Newnham Riverbank Club, walked down the little path (which I think of as the paratext to the almost secret-garden-esque tranquility and remove of the club) and then gingerly slid into the water. Alex is so good at keeping me calm because I always begin breathing sharp and fast and she reminds me 'slow breaths, just a little more in, that's it.' It was the coldest water we've swum in so far, so cold it wasn't truly enjoyable because it hurt, but the feeling of triumph at having done it, and the warmth of the sun on our skin after (a 11 degree sun can feel as warm as Singapore when you've just emerged from cold water!) was absolutely worth it. We took a celebratory picture by hanging my camera on a tree and using the timer - here is the first one we took, and then laughed over because I look a) naked and b) like a creature composed of just legs and head!


So we took another - happiness and madness.



2. Wednesday: Jacob made this plum and almond cake which was so delicious - just the right level of sweet and tart and dense and light... I am definitely putting it on my to make list! We had it for dessert after making an adapted version of this creamy beet and kale pasta, which involved adding basil to the cashew cream sauce and using toasted walnuts, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds in place of the pine nuts, and it was so good. This was in celebration of him finishing and submitting his portfolio essays - I'm so proud of him!

3. Random: These earrings from Searlait are designed so beautifully - I also like these and these. And they're very conscious about making their packaging eco-friendly/recyclable, and make their jewelry from eco-silver (scrap silver that has been melted down and re-cycled) Sadly, like so many beautiful and ethical things it's wildly out of my student budget, but perhaps in the future...

4. Friday: I watched BOOM (written by Jean Tay), the first Southeast Asian play to be staged in Cambridge. It was absolutely beautifully presented, the set had elements brought from Singapore itself (like the Good Morning towel), the sound used recordings of birds taken from Macritchie and the 'flashback' sequences were filmed in Singapore over Christmas so familiar scenes of an HDB or a raintree were projected onto the Corpus playroom wall.

5. Monday: I met Pierre for coffee (or an absolutely delicious chai tea for me) to catch up on each others' terms, our thoughts on the f u t u r e and to talk about the randomest things from the band Iron and Wine, pre-war Hollywood propaganda films to the play he watched in London called Brief Encounter which I now very much want to see (twenty pound tickets please happen). Cambridge is a strange place of 'once a term' meetings with friends some times, but it is comforting to know that those friendships are still sustainable. I made sure I didn't look at the time for the whole meeting, so we could simply talk until we had said all we wanted to, and then say goodbye without the feeling of unfinished conversation, which felt really liberating.

6. Wednesday: I got an email from Cambridge about the scholarship I interviewed for a week before, an interview I thought went very badly. But God's sense of humour (and perhaps in some measure my own lack of self confidence) meant that I thought wrong, and I received an acceptance. This put me in a big conundrum, since I'd given up Cambridge to God, again and again, since Wednesday, thinking that he must have meant me not to go there. Perhaps it was a lesson in pre-empting God, perhaps it was a way of showing me how attached I've grown to this place, perhaps it was a was a means of opening my eyes to how terrified I am of what London means - bright lights, big city, roaring tube - but more on that in future.

7. Tuesday: In my singing lesson, Nic could tell that my voice was rather shredded after the weekends final evensong and Sussex Pistols concert (with the incredible Cadenza and Alternotives) and so after doing some warm ups and then attempting (very poorly on my part) to sing some bars of Purcell's 'I attempt from love's sickness to fly', he suggested I take a break and rest my voice, and instead of singing we talked about fell running and ice climbing and yoga. (I have only done the last of those three things, but after hearing about the other two from Nic I'd love to try them some day)

8. Thursday: I had my final dissertation meeting with James Wade, who has been really encouraging and patient with me throughout the entire writing process (not entirely done yet!) At one point in the supervision we were talking about a word (I think it might have been tears, which wouldn't be surprising, since that is the main thing I examine in my dissertation) and thought it would be a good idea to look it up in the MED (then again when is it not a good idea to look something up in the MED?) and I typed it into my laptop while he bent over his computer and in my head I thought 'How funny - here's an academic who I barely know and who is different from me in so many ways, and yet here we are, both nerding out over etymology.' Perhaps why I like medieval literature so much is because it deals so richly in words: where they come from, how they change and how they sound (just reading them slightly differently from how we'd read them today makes me more sensitive to what they might draw on and mean)

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Rest


“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”
― John Lubbock, The Use Of Life

It started with a conversation with Jacob and continued as I spent as much time as possible in bed to heal and later when I went on a walk with Semine and we talked about how, for all that Cambridge has taught us, it has left us ignorant on how to rest (and to have a peaceful mind when resting the body).

One morning I listened to this podcast, which reminded me that when (more often than not) I am left at the end of the day with a confounded to-do list, and a schedule that has been followed for the first hour and then abandoned for the next fifteen it is not a failure. The only failure is of my own frustration and unbelief, me clapping my hands over my ears when God says 'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways' (Isaiah 55:8-9) and saying 'Oh no, God, you don't understand - I had so much to do. I have so much to do. I need to do it, and fast, and the best way to do it is to stick to the list.' The podcast helpfully reminded me that 'efficiency of speed and directness is not what God is about. His purpose is to sanctify the traveler.' Frustration is, frustratingly, sanctifying. Change is sanctifying. But change and frustration don't need to go together. How much better to let God's changes sanctify me without pulling against his perfect plain, yearning for the imperfect but oh so efficient plan I put together.

Being ill, for instance, was not in my plan. 'My plan', in fact, was written out on Friday in the English Faculty Library, when I was just beginning to feel the aches of fever. I didn't recognise it (didn't want to?) and told myself it was me feeling sorry for myself or it was period hormones or I was just tired. And so I wrote out diligently in my diary 'Saturday - dissertation, meet Semine for lunch, SusSex Pistols, save the evening for Jacob. Sunday - meet Ashira 11.20 @ stag, 16.35 Choir. Monday- dissertation, v.c reading, movie, look over personal statement. Tuesday - prac crit, v.c writing, v.c. seminar reading. Wednesday - v.c writing, interview, seminar.....' 

I did probably about 3 of the things on that list (the interview, the movie and looking over my personal statement) and spent the rest of the time curled up, skyping family, listening to podcasts, watching movies, napping... And things didn't get done and I let them go, like balloons floating into the sky, and I knew that it was alright. After getting better, I wanted to keep that spirit of rest. The fact that a virus doesn't completely evaporate without leaving you a lingeringly weak and tired probably helped. But it meant doing yoga in the morning while listening to John Piper's solid joys, asking for essay extensions, getting 8 hours of sleep most nights, having naps, meeting friends and not looking at the time - just talking until we had nothing more to say and then parting full of each other, spending half my singing lesson talking about ice climbing and fell running and not feeling like it was a 'waste of time'. Nothing, I realise, is a waste of time if it is approached with the love of God and the thought that it is God's time. 

One thing I talked about with Semine when it came to rest was the sad reality that often rest makes us feel guilty, as if we don't deserve it, as if our purpose is human productivity. The strange 'self-forgiveness' we feel we need when we rest is, unsurprisingly, a big part of God's character - it's called grace. Grace to rest, grace to feel 'useless' and yet loved and intentional (intentionally useless?), grace to give anxiety about the future, about work, about time, to the hands that made and hold it all. 

When I was lying in bed, I read a lot of poetry (because poetry is in itself a medicine - poetry-cetamol?) and one poem I loved was The Broken Sandal, by Denise Levertov:

Dreamed the thong of my sandal broke.
Nothing to hold it to my foot.
How shall I walk?
                Barefoot?
The sharp stones, the dirt. I would
hobble.
And–
Where was I going?
Where was I going I can’t
go to now, unless hurting?
Where am I standing, if I’m
to stand still now?

I know where I'm standing, I know who hold me up even when I'm hobbling, and I know he guides my paths - they may be slow, vacillating wanders, with lots of pauses, rather than the straight line trajectories I envisage, but they are a beautiful, sanctifying journey.

Thoughts on being sick



When I was ill, all I wanted was home. When I skyped family on Sunday I kept crying because I was so lonesome for home - a phrase I remember reading in the Viking Quest Series I read when I was younger.

Telling herself she had to savour each bite, Bree held the cheese to her mouth. Then she remembered. At home her father always prayed before meals. Now the warm memory of that time around the table made Bree lonesome. Swallowing her, she closed her eyes before her tears could spill over.

I wanted so badly to have Mum by my bed side, stroking my hair back and putting her cool hands on my hot face. I wanted so badly to have Dad's herbal soup, with the wolfberries at the bottom.

But it was Lil who prayed. "Thank you, Father, [...] Thank you for this warm house -" 

On Tuesday I went for a walk by myself, just a short one on tired legs round the house and to the park and through an unexpected and beautifully peaceful graveyard. The sun came out and I stopped to feel it on my face after three days of being indoors all day. Birds were singing too, and there was the most beautiful glossy tortoiseshell cat in the grave yard. I came up with a mental list as I walked of the things I was thankful for - skype, vitamins, the sun, family, Jacob, Alex, Becky, vitamins, peas, congee (at least my attempt at it!), poetry, Stanley Cavell, and more and more...

I also realised, though, that a lot of what I am usually thankful for/things that usually make me happy were things that being ill takes away from you. Simple things like running, or yoga (I've always seen yoga as the perfect 'sick day' exercise but I felt too weak to even do that can you believe!) were impossible. Eating was distasteful, I had absolutely no appetite and just ate because I knew my body was expending energy to make me better and I needed to give it energy to do that. But something that remained lovely and life-giving was prayer and hearing God's promises either from the bible or when Jacob read out scripture when we skyped on Sunday (hooray for technology enabled non-contagious contact!!) 

Also I saw the most beautiful thing from my window when I sat there one day - a man stood waiting on the pavement for a long while (I was slightly suspicious at one point!) but finally met a woman who he gave a beautiful bunch of flowers to, and then they embraced. They talked and smiled and the woman glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was in the street to see before they kissed (little did she know I was watching from the window!) it made me smile to see their love - love is so darn beautiful. They drove off in separate cars, first the woman (leaving the man standing on the pavement as if nothing had happened) and then the man.

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

bricolage?


 “I’m a born bricoleur. I love the way that things that are otherwise discrete and self-contained start to suggest things once they are forced into a dialogue with something else.”-- John Akomfrah

I'm not sure if this post is an example of bricolage or bad writing but here are some amusing things - perhaps they talk to each other? (Anything talks if you listen hard enough)

a) I've been trying to see just how many patterns I can wear at once - it begun as a game but now I do it in all seriousness. The most was 6 (socks, bag, skirt, top, jumper, coat, 7 if you counted earrings, 5 if you don't count 2 badges on my coat as a 'pattern') This lady manages to do so beautifully and if it were still a game she'd be the top scorer.

b) This Poem made me laugh (that bit about the cabbage) and then stop and think. I remember writing in the list book Yings and Chari gave me in secondary school that my 'party trick' was disappearing, something I've practiced a couple times this week, leaving an ANOJ meeting early so I had time to prepare for my class and leaving formal early when I felt ill. There's something humbling about this poem and also I feel that a wrong reading of it easily suggests retreat rather than renunciation. Retreat in the easy, comfortable, thoughtless sense as opposed to the hard-thought decision of renunciation (for a better alternative) - I suppose the question is where do you reappear to after having disappeared from the first place?

The Art of Disappearing
Naomi Shihab Nye

When they say Don’t I know you?
say no.
When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.

If they say We should get together
say why?

It’s not that you don’t love them anymore.
You’re trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven’t seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don’t start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

c) The Mandarin word for butter is literally translated 'cow oil' which sounds so unappealing.  I've been thinking about how much joy words and their multiple meanings give me. One of my favourite parts of writing the most recent draft of my dissertation was looking up words in the middle english dictionary and sifting through all their various meanings. Words like 'sweetness' and 'wonder' and 'boystows'. And I still wonder (although now when I use that word i think of its many other meanings!) about 'cleave' and 'whatnot'!

Monday, March 5, 2018

Feeling full


(Looking back on last week's happiness - I remember once having a conversation with Chrispy and Prisca about how it is easier to write about/make art out of sadness but I don't know - I love writing about happiness but never feel my words quite do happy moments justice, like the medieval inexpressability topos)

The first proper poem I remember writing was called 'Not hungry is not the same as full', which was about the difference between getting by and loving and living and feeling satisfied. 'I can't tell if you're not hungry/or just not full' I wrote. Last weekend I felt utterly full, and spent time with people who left me full and who seemed full (to me) meeting me as well.

Saturday

I started the morning by going on a prayer walk with Liv - it was a cold morning but crisp and clear. We walked to praising, praying for each other and the people in our lives, for Cambridge and for people to come to know God. Liv is so wise and so full of faith and is such a living encouragement. After that I cycled straight down to run with Jacob, towards Grantchester and back this morning and faster than usual 

I came across this beautiful poem:

Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches?

by Mary Oliver

Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches of other lives --
tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey, hanging
from the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning, feel like?

Do you think this world was only an entertainment for you?

Never to enter the sea and notice how the water divides
with perfect courtesy, to let you in!
Never to lie down on the grass, as though you were the grass!
Never to leap to the air as you open your wings over the dark acorn of your heart!

No wonder we hear, in your mournful voice, the complaint
that something is missing from your life!

Who can open the door who does not reach for the latch?
Who can travel the miles who does not put one foot
in front of the other, all attentive to what presents itself
continually?
Who will behold the inner chamber who has not observed
with admiration, even with rapture, the outer stone?

Well, there is time left --
fields everywhere invite you into them.

And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away
from wherever you are, to look for your soul?

Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!

To put one's foot into the door of the grass, which is
the mystery, which is death as well as life, and
not be afraid!

To set one's foot in the door of death, and be overcome
with amazement!

To sit down in front of the weeds, and imagine
god the ten-fingered, sailing out of his house of straw,
nodding this way and that way, to the flowers of the
present hour,
to the song falling out of the mockingbird's pink mouth,
to the tippets of the honeysuckle, that have opened

in the night

To sit down, like a weed among weeds, and rustle in the wind!

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

While the soul, after all, is only a window,

and the opening of the window no more difficult
than the wakening from a little sleep.

Only last week I went out among the thorns and said
to the wild roses:
deny me not,
     but suffer my devotion.
Then, all afternoon, I sat among them. Maybe

I even heard a curl or two of music, damp and rouge red,
hurrying from their stubby buds, from their delicate watery bodies.

For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters,
caution and prudence?
Fall in! Fall in!

A woman standing in the weeds.
A small boat flounders in the deep waves, and what's coming next
is coming with its own heave and grace.

Meanwhile, once in a while, I have chanced, among the quick things,
upon the immutable.
What more could one ask?

And I would touch the faces of the daises,
and I would bow down
to think about it.

That was then, which hasn't ended yet.

Now the sun begins to swing down. Under the peach-light,
I cross the fields and the dunes, I follow the ocean's edge.

I climb, I backtrack.
I float.
I ramble my way home.

and had a fun rehearsal with the Sussex Pistols before doing good work in the library, and got home feeling slightly deflated and tired, but Jacob came over with lentil pasta and we sat, warm and content. I needed a cuddle, and so did he, and who doesn't emerge from a cuddle feeling loved and more-whole?

(Absolutely insufficient words but.)

Sunday - Jacob's birthday!

After yesterday morning's walk, I knew when I saw the sun through my window that I needed to get out for a quick walk this morning too. I had about 15 minutes, so I took a back route to the park and playground near my house. When I got there it was empty, the puddles were frozen over, and the seat of the playground zipline was white frosted. That didn't stop me from wiping the frost off, climbing up the launch pad, sitting down and leaning back and flying down low over the ground. Three times. And then I climbed a hill, did a cartwheel, and clambered over a rock wall, before walking back home, with the firm decision in my heart to never ever lose the will to play.

Jacob came over a couple minutes after I'd got back, and we made peanut butter and chocolate granola (I think we've got the recipe firmly perfected, because this is the second time we've made it and it's been absolutely heavenly both times) and nice cream for his birthday breakfast, and did yoga while it was in the oven, then ate it sitting next to him and feeling so thankful that he was born, and went through 20 years of life and somehow loves me. 

We went to church, listened to a sermon by a man who works in Burundi who talked about trusting and having faith in God's promises, keeping obedient to his commandments, and taking risks for him just as Abraham did. We sang 'You Never Let Go' which reminded me of singing it with Gloria back at home. After that we had lunch with his Mum and sister - they're so good at including me and making me feel welcome. I came back home for a bit before evensong, and just lay on my bed reading (had the strange realisation a couple days later that time like that on my degree is so precious - I get to read fiction books and poetry for my education, things that I'd spend my leisure hours on happily anyway!)

After evensong, at formal, I let Jacob go in first, then asked Hannah to follow, so I had some time to talk to the hall staff about a little surprise, letting them know who he was. The entire thing almost went terribly and funnily wrong when first one of the waiters came and whispered inconspicuously in my ear that the surprise was all ready (bless him, I think he was just as excited as I was but didn't realise Jacob was right opposite me!) and later when another waitress came up to asked me 'which one is he again?' but thankfully Hannah was able to distract him, so that when it was time for dessert everything was ready. And then I was served a fruit salad, and had a momentary stomach twist - had they forgotten somehow?? - but then it was taken away, and in its place was a chocolate brownie with an orange sorbet and on Jacob's plate they'd written Happy Birthday and oh his face, he was so surprised, and I felt suddenly happy and worried and embarrassed and joyful and full of laughter all at once. I'd been imaging how he'd react all week, and I found it so hard to keep it a secret since I was so excited about it and usually he's one of the people I share my excitement about stuff with.

(A couple days later we were talking about mixed emotions/what makes you cry. Feeling a combination of things, like happy-sad, happy-scared, angry-sad, seem to be more tear inducing then their straight emotion constituents - although if there is ever a purely straight emotion is a whole other question!)

Then the bar, where I met Hannah (another Hannah!) and her boyfriend who are so friendly and warm, and then back to his room to open my present. I was anxious-excited, and rested my head on his shoulder for reassurance. I'd made a book of unphotographable moments, filled with little 'snapshots' of some of the smallest and yet really beautiful moments we've shared together (and a sprinkling of just plain funny ones that it would be a pity to forget!) As usual, he had exactly the right words to lift my rough effort and make it something special - 'longing put into form' - presents. perhaps, are an inseparable combination of giver and receiver. 

I've started listening to John Piper's 'Solid Joys' daily, usually at breakfast or before bed. I can't remember which day this was, but he says so well what I'm trying to convey:

'I will not drown in this fullness but be blessed by every way by this fullness. This fullness is not only a fullness of grace but of truth [...] this grace is rooted in rock solid reality. Is it any wonder then, that I would feel astonished, and full of joy, at the fullness of Christ?'

Every good and perfect moment this week was a gift of grace from Christ, a gift that leaves in its wake the fullness of joy among and between people who love Him.