Amsterdam/Art/Contemplation/Catharsis

On my wall I've written in black marker across a poster of architecture in the Redland High School for Girls these words by Jenny O'dell:

'The artist creates a structure...that holds open a contemplative space against the pressures of familiarity that constantly threaten to close it.'

More accurately, I wrote those words all in capitals:

THE ARTIST CREATES A

STRUCTURE... THAT HOLDS

OPEN A CONTEMPLATIVE SPACE

AGAINST THE PRESSURES

OF FAMILIARITY THAT

CONSTANTLY THREATEN

TO CLOSE IT.

- Jenny O'dell

Today in a brief half hour window between a meeting at the church for A Night of Jubilee and a craft session to make thank-you cards for our supervisors, I lay on my bed and read a few chapters of Autumn by Ali Smith, trying to re-create a reader comment on this blog  about summer: “I love feeling tired on a hot summer evening after a day in the sun, putting on a loose T-shirt and comfy underwear, lying on top of crisp, clean sheets with a fan on at the foot of my bed, reading a delicious book.”

In other words trying to establish a contemplative space, to let words roll over me with their un-punctuated narrative (as I have realised is characteristic of Autumn so far - speech is never distinguished from description or thought by quotation marks, everything exists on the same plane of novel-language). The odd thing is, this posture - lying in bed, reading - is essentially the same as what I'd been doing to revise for exams. When books are your examinable medium, you need to read and reread them in preparation, and I spent hours holding them open, mouthing quotes to myself, trying to remember the names of critics.

But the reading I've been doing after exams is different - more contemplative, resisting the familiar pressures of speed, criticism and necessity that accompany reading for revision. I re-cultivated that habit in Amsterdam, where Alex and I lay on the grass outside the museumplein, reading. Alex read Barthes' essays on wrestling and steak and I read The Festival of Insignificance, a not-good book. (But how wonderful to read a not-good book after reading books that I am compelled to insist are good sometimes for the sake of an essay, even when their sentences cause me grief because they are so complicated)

Museumplein was where we spent most of our time, because the idea of Amsterdam was to go and look at art. So we went through the Van Gogh Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and the Stedelijk museum in two days, each so different, but it was the Stedelijk museum which really got to me in that breath taking, heart wringing way art sometimes does. We walked into an exhibition called Studio Drift, and the first piece that caught my eye was a little light, made of a dandelion.

How odd, I thought, I've seen this before.

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But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more immaterial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection. ―  Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

-------------------------------------------------

And in a Proustian madeleine moment, I was transported to a moment in 2015 (or maybe that moment was transported forward) in the Victoria & Albert museum, when Wei Xin, Ellis and I looked at a dandelight. Here it was in front of me, a single dandelight, and then in the next room - miracles upon miracles - it was filled with them.

In another room, there was a tree, with leaves that lit up and glowed in different colours. And the madeleine moment happened again, and suddenly I was alone under that tree in the Armenian Church in 2016, and I'd just finished first year. Grandma was alive, I didn't know Jacob, and I was trying to reconcile myself with myself - who had I become, one year away from home? If I could turn back time, would that moment under that tree be where I'd go? It was a threshold moment, in between travel and stasis, beginnings and endings. But no - I wouldn't lose what I've been given to regain what I've lost. I've been grown so much, blessed beyond measure, felt a trinity of physical, emotional and spiritual sensations that I perhaps imagined in theory but never grasped in reality. Despite the madeleine moment of bringing the past and present together, it also reinforced just how past that time was, that self was. I was different, and I was good. I am different, and that is good.

I realised the untethered feeling I'd been having after exams had ended had been in part because I didn't know who I was without the structure of work/working towards. And the museum reminded me that structure doesn't always have to be structured and progressive - it can be still and gentle, a structure that is contemplative and questioning. Who am I? That 2015 question I still ask in 2018, but it is a relief to realise that I ask it with less need to fix myself to a single answer, but to relish the contemplation (and the ability to contemplate). To admit that to myself broke the hard knot of fear and confusion in me that I'd been carrying around for a little while. I had a little cry over the tree, leaning against the cool white walls of the gallery, and then walked on to see more art.

------------------------------------------------------------

At the English dinner on Thursday, Leo asked me how Amsterdam was.

'Oh, it was great - really cathartic.'

'Ah,' he said, and gave me a funny look.

Amsterdam - catharsis - w e e d, oh dear.

'Not like that.'

(Oh for a void to swallow me)

Moments: 6-13 May

Spring has come to Cambridge, proper summery-spring, and so many joyful moments arrived with the sun. Last week:

Sunday

Doing yoga in the park near the house with Jacob, which meant mud-stained knees from cat cows and grass in my face during child's pose. The smell of fresh grass - why isn't that a smell I smell more often?

Having breakfast in the garden with Jacob - overnight oats, peanut butter, cinnamon, strawberries and banana is such as classic and delicious combination. Combined with sun, clear skies and Jacob's blue eyes and there's my perfect morning.

Having lunch with Pierre, Charlotte and Jacob at Kettle's Yard and then watching the Akomfrah installation Auto Da Fe -- and THEN cycling down to Skater's Meadow and lying in swimming costumes in the sun -- and THEN jumping into the Cam, first Harriet, then Jacob, then me. Getting over the first gasping breaths, then swimming to shake off the cold-limb-heaviness. There were a few punts out, and a handy tree to cling on to for a mid swim break. But oh what a delight, to swim in cold water on a hot day, with people fill with the joy of the Lord!

Clinging on the Harriet as she gave me a 'backie' into town, which involved an incredible feat of strength on her part as she cycled without sitting on the seat and with the bike on gear 6 all the way from granchester, with my hanging on for dear life on the back! I think I laughed or smiled almost the whole way, it was surreal. Except for the moments where I said 'ouch' at bumpy bits, or when Harriet and I called out 'ring ring' at crowded parts to compensate for my lack of a bike bell!

Trying to get ice cream with Jacob in the interim between rehearsal and evensong and failing and walking back sans shoes and feeling absolutely a l i v e.

Singing Stanford in A during evensong and being drenched in a shaft of sunlight that pierced through a chapel window during the magnificant. I felt like it was a big warm embrace from God - a sharing in the joy I absolutely could not contain that day.

Ending the day, as I started, with Jacob and joy.

Tuesday 

Sitting in the sun on the wall outside Kings with Jacob by my side and peanut butter ice cream in my hand, feeling like you couldn't add much to the mix to make me any happier.

Going to a swing dancing class with Kerry, and being spun around by a man in a Hawaiian t-shirt who was going to Bulgaria over the weekend just to do more swing dancing. Seeing people dance with each other so naturally across the room, laughing over my own clumsiness and awkwardness as I tried to remember to follow the leader's body-suggestions while also remembering to move my own body to the music and through the steps I'd learnt that evening. I cycled back remembering how in the second term of first year I'd set up a series of challenges for myself, including 'do one new thing every week'. This swing class was certainly a new thing, and so rewarding...

Wednesday

Making not-very-successful dumplings that tasted successful despite their misshapen appearances with Jacob, and eating them out in the garden. Bella warned us of a spider infestation in the garden, which we failed to spot until mid way through something Jacob was saying I spied a tiny spider, only slightly bigger than the head of a pin, hanging from his ear like an earring and stopped him to take it off. (The infestation turned out to be a little colony of these miniscule spiders, set up on the compost bin)

Thursday

A bright, brisk morning on the river, which made me feel so alive. The boat was so much more settled and rowing felt a lot easier, and we went further and faster which was incredibly exciting! It's funny to see the path I often run down from the river, the perspective I never thought I'd have.

Then singing Vaughn Williams' 'Silent Noon' in my singing lesson.

And feeling so incredibly absorbed in Hollywood revision that I burnt the chickpeas I'd left boiling on the hob and set the fire alarm off... (Hollywood is a fascinating subject - I didn't think I'd like it much, but it's incredible and has to do so much with human psychology and what we want/desire and how that changes based on context/history, or how we're told certain desires are acceptable and others aren't... all so interesting...)

Friday

A fruitful day in the UL, punctuated by lunch on the grass outside with Jacob, and a 'bimble' (as she called it) with Alex in which we tried in words tumbling over themselves to catch up on a week of not seeing each other, and admired a particularly impressive tree.

Saturday

Doing sprint intervals with Jacob - so painful, so good. I ran to the rhythm of Grandma's rhyme 'left, left, he had a good job and he left, right, right, it serves him jolly good right, left, left...' and heard Jacob's more complicated version of the same feet-pace-poem. Each circuit was tough, but I imagined in my head Luk Ching's encouraging shouting from AC track days 'Go Miriam!' and thought of Nat's wise words - that I don't have to run, I get to run, what a blessing! - and felt so affirmed, running to Jacob at the finish line, and hearing his encouragement (and also seeing that he shared my pain/tiredness!)

Singing American Boy in a circle with the SusSex Pistols - what a song, what a group of girls, and --- halfway through one sing-through a black Labrador walked into the room and then walked out again, disinterested, which made us all laugh.

Sunday

An interesting new beetroot muesli breakfast adventure with Jacob, and then the construction of a rhubarb cheesecake!

Sunday

Singing 'Oh praise the name of the Lord our God, oh praise His name forever more! For endless days we will sing your praise O Lord, O Lord our God' before a really heartening sermon by a visiting preacher about how 'the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed' - small and often unnoticeable in its growth, and yet it will grow into the biggest tree in the garden. The preacher told us about his family, and how just one man in his family in 1882 had been brought to hear the gospel by his parlour maid when he was just a boy, and he heard and believed, and subsequently passed the faith down through his family, and on and on.

A rowing outing where we almost crashed into a house boat, and heard children in the boat singing at the top of their lungs 'JINGLE BELLS JINGLE BELLS JINGLE ALL THE WAYYYYY'

Evensong (Howells' 'St Pauls service', and Harris' 'Bring Us O Lord God') and then a happy formal including conversations about life museums (if you had a museum of you, what would you put in it?), the better kind of fruit salad dessert and not one but two absolute classic vestry sing-song pieces ('Noble in B Minor', very aptly put forward by Jacob, and Parry's 'I was glad')

24/04/2018

Yesterday was a bit of a heavy day. You know when you come down from a high and feel slightly lost and useless? Post-dissertation me, writing about Partition and bodies and violence, with grey skies outside felt a bit like that. Working was slow, and draining when you realise that articulating trauma has so many rules and restrictions and faults. Part of me wants to applaud writers for even approaching trauma, even though they don't do a just representation of the full extent of trauma. Because how can words do that, when trauma is so physical, so tied to touch, memory and all the senses. And should you replicate trauma or just aim at mediating it? Is the replication of it a violence in itself?

I was particularly struck by an extract from Veena Das, who wrote about her  interactions with women who had witnessed Partition:

"When women’s bodies were made the passive witnesses of the disorder of the Partition in this manner, how did women mourn the loss of self and the world? It is considering this question that we find startling reversals in the transaction between body and language. In the normal process of mourning, grievous harm is inflicted by women on their own bodies, while the acoustic and linguistic codes make the loss public by the mourning laments. When asking women to narrate their experiences of the Partition I found a zone of silence around the event. This silence was achieved either by the use of language that was general and metaphor but that evaded specific descriptions of any events so as to capture the particularity of their experience, or by describing the surrounding events but leaving the actual experience of abduction and rape unstated. It was common to describe the violence of Partition in such terms as rivers of blood flowing and the earth covered with white shrouds right unto the horizon. Sometimes a woman would remember images of fleeing, but as one woman warned me, it was dangerous to remember. These memories were sometimes compared to poison that makes the inside of the woman dissolve, as a solid is dissolved in a powerful liquid. At other times a woman would say that she is like a discarded exercise book, in which the accounts of past relationships were kept—the body, a parchment of losses. At any rate, none of the metaphors used to describe the self that had become the repository of poisonous knowledge emphasized the need to give expression to this hidden knowledge"

I read this alongside Cracking India, and couldn't help but see (as I read later in a brilliant article by Ambreen Hai) just how silenced Ayah's voice is, during and after her abduction. ‘Can the soul be extracted from its living body? Her vacant eyes are bigger than ever’. I suppose from the start of the novel it is more her body that speaks that her mouth since she's presented as a highly physically desirable character, but she's still intensely spirited and controls her body to articulate her power. After her abduction she basically becomes a shell and her body doesn't say anything except I am hurt, I am lost, I am sad. and, most crushingly 'I am not alive'. A parchment of losses indeed. Should I expect the body to say anything differently after so much suffering? But we need those bodies to say 'This is what happened to me, let me tell you what happened so you can't pretend it didn't' --- so that some justice is done, some measure of learning gained and pain is not made meaningless.

On top of all these questions, my heart just ached, in the same way it ached when I saw John Akomfrah's Unfinished Conversation last year, at the violence people do to each other and the injustice that we all perpetuate.

Even practicing handstands in my room didn't help shake the feeling that the world was all wrong.

After I'd planned the essay I cycled down to Focus, hoping for some nice 'God loves you and God keeps you safe' type of reassurance or something. But I got there and we went straight into Romans 9, that tricky passage about God's sovereignty.

'As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. [...] You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” [...] What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?'

It's such a hard passage to think about, especially when I think of the people I love who haven't yet accepted Christ. I've received the mercy of Christ but so many haven't because they haven't accepted it. Which is just in a way but also -- Oh God, what about Tim? What about Ama? What about Zenia? What about Alex? What about...? Countless names come to mind. I realise it is mercy itself that we are living in a time of God's patience as He waits and calls for people to receive the love and grace He freely gives, but I suppose my human stubborn self constantly worries that it won't be enough.

But at the close of the day I went to Jacob's room. I had a window of time sitting on his bed before he got back, where I wrote down some of the things that troubled me. Mid-sentence, the door opened and Jacob came in with the biggest smile on his face which lit me up inside to see his joy.

'Why are you so happy?'

'I'm happy to see you!'

Very smooth, and it made me laugh. We had a little bit of this gorgeous cake which we'd made on Monday, which (as I wrote on the pot I put them in) is only the BEST CHOCOLATE CAKE IN THE WORLD. As I discovered on Monday, there is apparently a difference between cake and pudding (I'd previously thought cake just came under the umbrella term 'pudding', which I thought was a synonym for 'dessert' but  that is apparently not the case) but this is definitely cake, and such good cake that I'd have it for pudding and for every single birthday until I'm diabetic. Afterwards we prayed together, about bad days and good days, present days and future days. I am thankful I have a good God who listens, who is just and who is sovereign and in control. Things like Partition and Romans 9 sometimes shake me and make me wonder 'why?', 'how?', but those very questions that desire justice in me, the molded one, surely reflect the desire for justice in the molder. And the good thing is that he does rule with justice, so that pain is not forgotten or shamed, and so that the story written on his parchment is not one of infinite loss but infinite mercy, love and grace.

Dissertation - done

On Monday I submitted my dissertation - read through it a final time in the morning and shifted some full stops around, printed it with Alex in the stifling computer room and then brought it back home to set it aside while I ate with Becky and Alex and talked about The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Kate Middleton's new baby and Yoga and tried not to think about the fact that the work I'd been perfecting over months and months was about to be out of my hands.

I wrote it on tears in medieval devotional literature, examining their aesthetic treatment and how from something abject they are made, through the paradox of abjection and beauty in the gospel and crucifixion itself, into something beautiful. (Abjection here being Julia Kristeva/Mary Douglas' psychoanalytical idea of abjection as impurity through the crossing of boundaries.) It was a strange process, beginning with me trying to do lots of funky things with contemporary literature and art from Picasso to Rogier van der Weyden, but eventually I realised that in 7,500 words I couldn't cover the whole history of human grief and aesthetic experience. And so instead I decided to write about what personally made sense to me - how the gospel, in my life and in the life of medieval mystics like Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich is the biggest saving grace, spiritually, bodily, aesthetically.

Although I don't engage in fits of public crying, or melt in the heat of contemplation, or see haptic visions of Christ's wounds, there is something bodily in my worship - how movement like yoga or running helps me attune my mind to prayer and meditation in the same way Cistercian monks' used their bodies - usually through crying or mortification - to create intention and attention to reading and understanding scripture. I've begun thinking of affective piety in Church, particularly during communion, and find that in thinking vividly of the Passion during communion, which is all about the body and blood of Christ, I'm reminded more of exactly what it meant - how physically Jesus suffered for my sins, how physically he loved and sacrificed himself for the salvation of humanity.

I remember seeing Mum crying during communion once, and thinking to myself that that kind of contrition was what it meant to really love God, when you see in him your own sin/impurity, and yet at the same time see how he has cherished you into beauty.

So it begins...

... The last term of my life in this beautiful university.

I arrived back to gorgeous sunshine, which meant lolling in the grass for tea with my housemates, sitting outside for lunch, yoga with Jacob in the sunlight squares of my window followed by sweet potato and chickpea curry for dinner in the garden, having a picnic with Harriet, cartwheels whilst on a walk with Jacob and, once on a hot and sweaty mid-afternoon run, changing my usual course to head to the riverbank and slipping slowly in to its cold water. This is what I want to remember of my time here - the friendship, the countless runs and the moments of spontaneity. Harriet and I talked about bottling up bits of sunshine to tide us through difficult winter weather, but I'd also like to bottle up the people and moments and feelings... In first year on one equally sunny afternoon, sitting beside the river with Alex and Mariella, Alex asked us for three words to describe the moment. She talked of hot asphalt and trees, and I said something like 'ducks, daisies and the dappled reflection of water on boats'. Three words for this week: oh, forever please.

On the last properly sunny day of the week, Jacob and I found a bit of Sid gardens without people in it (initially) and I spread my sarong and we ate burritos (which we at first put on the 'worst foods to eat on a date' list, and then proceeded to eat them without spilling anything like the champions we are) and then lay down and looked at the clouds which moved quickly over the sky. There was one that looked like an alien. 'I just keep thinking how weird it is that this time last year I didn't know you - not really.' It is strange, that in the span of a year someone who I'd watch disappear back to his room after choir is now my best friend and so much more. That I know what his room looks like, and also how much of a mug of porridge he eats, and how he prays. 'Yes, it is strange. I don't think I thought it through rationally, and yet I was sure.'

It's strange to think that this place, which I hardly knew when I arrived, has become so dear, so like home. And it's strange to think I'm leaving in a months time.

Sometimes the future scares me. Why? Because so much of it is unknown. But -

'I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love.' John 15:9

-I know I am safe with You, and safe in Your love. It might seem irrational to place certainty in love - will love keep me safe in London, or guide me through a six years of heritage work, or sustain me through my finals? Perhaps not directly, not in the way sticking to public areas, reading museum theory or studying, eating and resting healthily does. But in my little experience of a love that holds and promises, I can also say yes, love can, and more.

'--and be sure of this—that I am with you always, even to the end of the world.' Matthew 28:20

'So don't leave me.'

'I won't.'

A collection of the inappropriate and strange things that come out of my mouth

1) My director of studies 'Who should we invite to the post-exam English dinner? We could invite some of your supervisors -- oh, Miriam, what about _____ (my dissertation supervisor)?'

Me: 'Oh yes, he could teach us wrestling!'

Dos: Maybe not.

Me: No. (internally) Please let me die.

(Context: Apparently my supervisor used to wrestle before he started lecturing on medieval literature - that's Cambridge for you!)

2) Jay: Is Jacob your first boyfriend?

Me: Yes, and I'm the first woman he's been with.

Jay: First...woman?

Me: Not like that.

3) Me: Yeah for sure I'd travel with a baby, babies are portable!

Me:(internally) I am an idiot.

4) Whilst looking at the recipe for the chocolate and pear cake we were making, which called for one pear.

Holds up a pear.

Me: 'Is this a pear?'

(I meant would that equate to 'one pear' as written in a recipe. We ended up using one and a half.)

4) 'Lots of love, Miriam' - when signing off an email to the student accounts woman

Peace-giving

10.10am - ish

I sat down at the end of the pew, late as usual but un-flustered because how could anything faze me on such a beautiful summer's day?

'Take a couple minutes to say hi to the people around you.'

I turned to the man beside me, but he'd turned to his right to the man beside him, so I waited and flipped through my bible. Then he turned to me.

'Peace-giving,' he said.

Peace-giving? What does he mean? What does that mean? 

Then I remembered that sometimes in English churches they do that thing called 'giving the peace' or 'passing the peace', where you shake hands or give well-meaning nods and say 'peace be with you'. And so,

'Peace be with you too,' I said, smiling, 'What's your name?'

Slight pause.

'Um, peace-giving.'

'Oh. Oh, right! Um, I'm Miriam.'

6/4-11/4

Last night it took me a while to get to bed partly because I felt lonely. I probably definitely made things worse by watching a sad movie about a dying girl for whom love is still worthwhile even though she only has a short time on earth, and also I had residual tummy flutters (the bad kind) from the X5 coach ride. I was taking the X5 back to Cambridge from a week-ish in Oxford with Jacob and his family.

One evening while we were there, having just made chocolate orange cookies, I asked Jacob 13 questions and he asked me 13 questions, based off the apparently scientific '36 questions that lead to love' (I think the NYT article misleads you into thinking it means romantic love specifically but I have a hunch they are just 36 questions that lead to deeper connection - so friend love, neighbour love, stranger on a platform love, and not necessarily romantic love, although you could argue that even stranger on a platform love is in some way romantic). The questions also sent me to this reflection on love, which included a long list of 'love is...''s, little statements that made me reflect on how/who/what we are and how that manifested in that week in Oxford:

'Love is bringing them a peace they have always deserved.'

On a walk in Wytham woods I asked him 'Do you think you've changed in any way since we've been together?'

'Yes,' He said, with a sort of surprised definite-ness. 

'How?'

One of the things he mentioned was that with me he feels calmer, which is something I definitely notice about myself as well when I'm with him. And conversely away from him there's always the initial anxiety of separation, the same funny feeling I'd get after leaving Grandma's after short respite weekends there in first year. 

Love is loving those they care for.

Having met Jacob's family the first time I stayed, this time I met one of his friend families, a group of guys he went interrailing with. They were all individually so great, and different, but together they got along so well and complemented each other's personalities so perfectly - they reminded me of a male version of the Sisterhood of Travelling Pants. I couldn't help but like them all, not just because they were Jacob's friends and I'd love them for that because a) I trust his taste in people b) They make him happy, but because they were great people. We sat round a fire that was (wait for it) in a globe and then I was initiated into the solemn rite of playing fifa.

Love is building them up every single day.

I didn't know who I was or where the ball was or which goal we were shooting into for most of the time an I know it's difficult to believe but I might actually be worse at fifa football than actual football (and Tim refuses to play actual football with me because I have a tendency to kick him and not the ball most of the time because legs and ball move so quickly in a game of football). And despite that Jacob would say 'great pass' or 'good job' when I did manage to actually have contact with the ball.

Love is making them feel beautiful.

Jacob is really good at doing this, particularly when I feel lumpy and embarrassed.

Love is learning to love yourself first so you can love them better.

And when he says it, I very often believe it. And he also brings out the bits of me that I love about myself - like how I get excited for other people's birthdays (25 February was a very exciting day) and how I find funny internet gems/good poems and share them with him.

Love is dipping a life-long friendship in honey.

One day we went running around Port Meadow which was possibly the muddiest run of my life but I loved it - muddy running is strangely satisfying, especially as your mind is so focused on jumping over puddles and skipping round sludge and keeping balance that there's no time to really think about your legs (although that comes in full force during the relatively less muddy bits, since all the mud avoiding is rather strenuous!)

Another day, in between study sessions in the Bodleian, we went to Pizza Express and each got a big pizza, and talked about a spontaneous trip post-exams (somewhere as warm as or warmer than England), and laughed over olives, and the view from the men's bathroom, and relished the pizza, and it felt like I was with a best friend but also more.

Love is winning at life together.

Those pizzas cost us nothing because of some special thing on the pizza express app - need I say more?

Love is saying sorry over and over again.

Jacob says sorry - a lot, and at one point we played a game to limit the sorrys, but I'm also really grateful for how easily he says sorry. He isn't proud or defensive, but just genuinely wants to make those around him happy and secure.

Love is living without the fear of being enough.
& Love is believing in yourself, sometimes for their sake.

In one of our conversations I looked Jacob right in the eyes, because this was really important, and told him that under no circumstances was he to think that he doesn't love me enough. That what he does, how he does, to love me is good, and sufficient.

'Do you believe it?'

'Yes.'

'Good.'

Love is being grateful for them.

Always. 

17/4/2018

Today I walked from the train station to my house while reading the last 30-ish pages of 'Cracking India', pulling my trusty little cabin bag along behind me, and relying on that magic power developed in childhood of being able to navigate around drifting crowds without lifting my eyes long enough to break the soft momentum of story.

Cracking India is a novel about the Partition of India told through the eyes of a young girl, weaving all the tragedies of growing up into the tragedies of people torn apart by conflict. It's incredible, and I wasn't going to look up from it for the world (except as I crossed Parker's Piece because the wind was too strong to keep the book's pages open). I'd started the novel on the way to Austria, on a 4.56 am train to Stansted. I read it by the lake in Traun, surrounded by daisies and sunlight. I read it in the Linz airport, on the plane, on the platform at Stansted with my feet propped on my suitcase. And then I was interrupted.

I was in the middle of Ranna's story about the massacre of his village, when I heard an 'excuse me,' and looked up and realised my bag had slipped onto the seat beside me.

'Sorry,' I said, and moved it, and a man sat down, and (inevitably- why do people always ask this) asked me where I was from. Actually he asked me if I was from China, and I said 'No, from Singapore.'

'Ah - but you look a bit Chinese.'

So I explained that my Dad's ancestors are from China, while my Mum is English, at which he smiled and said 'Your Father is from China - so you are from China. Like me, my father is from Kashmir, so I am Kashmiri. In Pakistan - but I am Kashmiri.'

Kashmir - my mind strayed again to Ranna's story. I wondered if the violence of his country's past has any bearing on how he consciously lives and thinks. Still, I was intrigued by how he identified heritage, and suggested that since Dad wasn't born in China, and neither was I, that claiming Chinese heritage was a little far-fetched, especially since Singapore is its own entity. His insistence on patrilineal heritage reminded me a little of Apollo's argument about paternity/maternity in the Oresteia, in which he suggests a mother is little more than a plant pot:

Not the true parent is the woman’s womb
That bears the child; she doth but nurse the seed
New-sown: the male is parent; she for him
As stranger for a stranger, hoards the germ
Of life, unless the god its promise blight.

I asked him why he called himself Kashmiri and not Pakistani, and he said there's a difference - 'they are too clever' he said, grinning. I asked him if he met someone from Pakistani in Kashmir, and didn't hear them speak, would he know they were Pakistani, he answered with a confident 'Yes- their face, everything. They are different.'

Different - I wonder what makes someone one thing and another person another. Whilst in Austria, I was struck by how I found a strange resemblance between myself and one of the women there from Afghanistan. Having never really found a physical representative of my particular mix of races in media/magazines, it was surprising to 'see myself' in someone who was meant to be entirely different - face, language, upbringing, life situation. But I realised in Austria that yes, there are lots of differences between me and an Afghan woman, just as there are many differences between me and a Kashmiri man, and many differences between me and my sister and brother. And yet there are points of overlap - a love for cardamom and popcorn, the choice to sit in the sun. Similarities in the 'small things', although who is to say they are smaller than the arbitrary place of our birth?

My train pulled up soon after that, and I read more, and then walked home, finishing the last page (to my great satisfaction) right outside the door of my house.

Holy Week Reflections

1. It's been raining almost every day this week -- but this Good Friday morning it was lovely and blue, and I went for a run and then lay on the floor of my room stretching and listening to an aria from the Messiah: 

I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. (Job 19:25-26) For now is Christ risen from the dead, the first fruits of them that sleep. (I Corinthians 15:20) 

(There were quite a few worms along the path as I ran, they'd come out after yesterday's rain, and I took care to avoid them although that meant several muddy splashes when I quick side step away from a worm meant a side step into a puddle.) 

2. The recording I was listening to was taken on Wednesday when I went with Auntie Sarah to watch Handel's Messiah in the cinema in Bury. They recorded it live from the Bristol Old Vic - and I recorded part of the singing which you can download here. It was some of the most beautiful singing I've heard in all my days. The director (Tom Morris) wanted to revivify the drama of the text and story and so rather than having it as a normal oratorio without costume/set/action, it was more like an opera -- Christ's body was born by candlelight onto the stage in the first scene, the soloists acted as well as sung their grief and the chorus participated in the scourging of Christ. The Christ in the performance was played by Jamie Beddard, who has cerebral palsy. I didn't realise at first and put the slight movements of the 'dead' Christ down to shivering - 'He must be cold, lying there without a shirt on,' I thought. When it became apparent (when he stood up) that he had a disability it added an entirely different dimension to the story. When the words 'he was despised and rejected' were sung their meaning came through so much more clearly, since it's difficult now to imagine Jesus (so highly exalted and loved) as being despised and rejected, but by paralleling it to the barriers to everyday life that people with disability face it became a lot more clear, and a lot more horrible:

"The Messiah gets cast out by his followers and, in many ways, there are parallels with the political climate around disability at the moment. In many ways my unique physicality contradicts people’s expectations of who Jesus was. It allows us to re-imagine who the historical figure might have been, away from the religious gloss that has determined how he has been understood for the last two millennia." (Jamie Beddard)

3. I've been reading and thinking a lot about rejection - ejection - abjection for my dissertation, and the crucifixion as a site for all of those things (rejection by man, ejection of blood, abjection of body) 

4. I've been reading about tragedy and theology and was struck by this quote:

'Betwixt and between: the Christian experience of the world is one of ambiguity, in the 'middle of the journey of our lives', 'lost', like Dante, 'in a dark wood' of sin, waiting for grace.' George Steiner compares is to Holy Saturday - 'we wait, between the memory, trauma and despair of Good Friday and the expectant hope of Easter. The experience [...] is one in which we learn the difference between optimism and hope, in which we are only able to hope for the best by confronting the worst. As Hardy enjoined, 'who holds that if way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst.''

5. Both Nat and I saw this quote on the same day 'Sometimes when you're in a dark place you think you've been buried, but you've actually been planted.' Christine Caine. Reminded me of Launcelot Andrewes sermon in which:

'Christ rising was indeed a gardener, and that a strange one, who made … a dead body to shoot forth out of the grave … He it is that by virtue of this morning’s act shall garden our bodies too, turn all our graves into garden plots; yea, will one day turn land and sea and all into a great garden, and so husband them as will in due time bring forth live bodies, even all our bodies alive again.'

6. I've been listening to (aside from the Messiah) the Killer's new album Wonderful, Wonderful, which has a song called 'Some Kind of Love'

You got the will of a wild

A wild bird

You got the faith of a child

Before the world gets in

You got some kind of love

You got the soul of a truck

On a long distance haul

You got the grace of the storm

In the desert

The soul of a truck -- I know a few people with souls like that and they are the best people. My parents have souls like long-distance haul trucks. The song also made me think of love (God so loved the world)  and Jesus (that he gave his one and only son) and the people I love (that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life). I want my loved ones to be on the long distance haul with me from now to eternity, and I am so glad that so many of them know God's love. But so many don't as well, and a run turned into a prayer run for Ama, and Tim, and Zenia, and Alex, and --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7. I am, as always, touched by the meeting of Jesus and Mary outside the tomb, after his Resurrection. I remember the teary world I ran through to the fields beyond the day after Grandma died, how I walked without feeling the cold and stood leaning on a fence, looking out and singing to myself. If I'd heard her call my name... The meeting between Mary and Jesus makes me cry in the same way the reunion of Hermione and Laertes in The Winter's Tale makes me cry, that impossibility and undeserved restoration of what was beautiful and lost:

Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

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.

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)

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.

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'!

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.