Thoughts on what I do.

I have always been one for pulling things together--science and religion or groups of friends, mostly. I try to make everything fit together. I try to get all of my friends to be friends with one another. I try to get along with everyone. I try to find ways to make the craziest theories and cultural mythologies line up, and I don't see science and Christianity as being as irreconcilable as people tend to claim. I am not good at straight lines, but I am a master of blending. And I want to believe in everything. Maybe because I don't usually make things up, I want to find the origins of everything--every word, every song, every turn of phrase, every belief and story. Maybe some came from nowhere. But why are there so many fairy tales, so many religions? Why not one or the other? And why is North America so full of ghost stories, when in other countries no one believes in ghosts at all? In Zimbabwe they aren't even discussed--but almost nobody swims, because the fear of mermaids is very real, even in fresh water. (Zim is landlocked, by the way.) And how do we align science, not with religion, but with the things that just happen, that don't line up with much of anything? And it's not just hearsay. I've heard plenty that can only be backed up by the words of my friends--miraculous healings, ghost stories, and so on--but I've experienced some myself, too. I've mentioned them before: I dreamed the future, once. That is, I think I've dreamed it many times, and remembered in deja-vu type moments, but I dreamed and remembered before the event. I dreamed of a stone and woke up with it in my hand. I heard someone calling my name when no one was around. What are those things, and things like that? Magic? Some natural force that science doesn't yet understand? Communiques from some higher being?

I have no idea. I couldn't and can't control or reproduce any of them. But there's no way that the "that's impossible" argument will ever convince me of much of anything.









Side notes:

There is just nothing like standing in a forest and looking up at a perfectly clear night sky. The trees stand tall and true, their gnarled limbs pushing and pressing upward forever, with the stars glittering through their strong fingers. I can't get enough of it.

And there is just something about holding a piece of fruit. It feels alive, magic. Bananas don't count--no seeds, no magic. But apples? For a while in college I used to take an apple from the cafeteria every day and bring it with me to psychology. I'd just sit in my seat before class and hold it in my two hands and look at it and smell it and adore it. And then eat it.

I know, I sound completely insane. Still, that doesn't change the truth of the matter. Fruit is magical. Seeds are magical. How could something so small become a tree*?

Anyway, oranges work too. We have oranges, and I held and adored one the other day before eating it. Magical, and far tastier than cheap cafeteria apples. (Actually, I only took an apple when they broke from their usual granny smith/red [un]delicious pattern. So the ones I ate were decent.)



Lastly, it has been brought to my attention that I gleefully referenced "The Book To Come Before The Book That Will End All Books," and frustratingly neglected to mention its actual title. (No, it isn't actually called TBTCBTBTWEAB. Sorry if that was confusing.) The Book is called Towers of Midnight, and was written by Brandon Sanderson using notes left for him by the late Robert Jordan. I finished it Monday night. It was excellent. I am toying with the idea of reading it again, since I clearly rushed through it the first time (840-some pages in two days is rather a lot, even for me) before returning it to the library. If you like fantasy, and if you like book series that go on forever (as I REALLY do), I highly recommend the series.















































*In another age, I probably would have been a druid. Hopefully the kind that didn't ritualistically violently murder people and leave them in random swamps like the Bog Man.

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All I'll say on the subject, I promise: the night is so gorgeous tonight. So clear! So much sky! So many stars! And the trees are magnificent.

Has it been since Thursday already? Oh. Oops. Well dinner (ish--I had half a pitiful sandwich and a smoothie at Tropical Smoothie) with David was okay. I think possibly I realized that It (capital I, referring to the two of us) isn't a good idea. Obviously I have come to this realization before, but what I mean is that possibly it's beginning to take. Isn't that something?


I think I also mentioned that the Book To* End All Books was sitting at the library with my name on it. It wasn't on the hold shelf--it was behind the front desk. The reference librarian who found it for me thinks that "it just got put there," but personally I believe that they were afraid someone would just walk off with this most precious of books.



No, I'm serious. Do you know how many holds are on that book? When I requested it, on November 27th, there were already sixteen holds. It came out on November second. I didn't expect to get it until March. 2012. And the thing is eight hundred and forty three pages long. In hardback. The fact that I have it in my hands right now is very little short of a miracle.



An aside: vanilla iced cream with cocoa powder right before bed is a horrible, horrible, completely delicious habit.



























*Come Right Before The Book That Will

Holidays

Lately I can feel myself closing down, day by day. I don't want to write anything. Or maybe I want to write in a real journal, by hand. Tonight I'll try here though, because I haven't been journaling, and not writing tends not to be good for me, after a while. Not that I feel I have much to say.


Chloe is home, very briefly. Last night I lay on the living room floor (beneath the ceiling fan, if you must know) and for a moment I thought I heard the rain. Then I suddenly realized that when she types, her keystrokes sound like gentle raindrops. Mine are somewhat less delicate. She has to leave again tomorrow night, and I already miss her. I feel like she's been home no time at all, and I am not looking forward to becoming reacquainted with her absence. Who will borrow my scarves and shoes and purses? She doesn't hug and kiss me goodnight anymore, unless I hug her first.


I was in a terrible mood on the way to Thanksgiving dinner in Norfolk, but Jim called to wish me a happy Thanksgiving, and that helped some. And my impossibly large, strong, loud, and loving family helped. I love them. I love Thanksgiving. I took video of our sung blessings, and took to heart some of the words:
His name be ever praised; he forgets not his own.


There are so many Christmas gifts I'd like to buy for my family that I just can't afford. It's a shame. And I guess I go through phases of contentment and lack thereof with regard to my existence, though when I'm in the contentment phase I so love to hopefully pretend that it's a real, forever change. That I am at peace with myself and God and the universe. That I am enlightened. Zen.
Alas: such, once again, does not seem to be the case. I'm doing alright--just feeling rootless again. Utterly directionless. I need a goal. Never before, that I remember, has a goal seemed so necessary to the act of breathing--but it certainly does now. This trackless sea seems airless, too.


Tonight, as I stepped out to walk Miley, the sky was overcast with a thin cover of clouds. At the bottom of the hill I threw myself into a leaf pile, as is my wont on evenings such as this (Miley was, as ever, reluctantly patient), and looked up through the trees at the pinkish, sodium-light sky. I tried unsuccessfully to convince our short dog into the deep leaves, then gave up and silently remarked to myself how very comfortable leaf piles are, and how nice it would be to sleep in one if I didn't have a dog attached to my wrist and a family that would worry and if I had a warmer coat, and then talked myself back onto my feet. On the way home, the wind picked up and the clouds began to run by above. The previously hidden stars glowed through the cloud cover for a moment, and then burst out and shone like bright and sparkling moonlit snowflakes.
I love the night.

Skies.

Tonight, for the second night in a row, I lay down and looked up at the stars and wish I could just fall asleep outside under the sky. This time it was in a pile of leaves next to the road. Last night I went out to lie in the street (our yard is roofed by towering pines and oaks and a holly and a tulip poplar) and see if I could catch the end of the Leonid meteor shower, and I ended up just listening to the night, hearing the faint sounds of a wind chime down the hill, and a dog barking in the distance. At one point I fancied I could see the stars moving on their inexorable paths through the night, but then realized that, at least judging by the changing positions of Orion I'd witnessed on previous nighttime walks, I "saw" them moving in the wrong direction. I got up when I realized that I'd doze off in the middle of the road if I wasn't careful. As I climbed the steps I suddenly envied Larry his dairy roof, where he can go lie out and watch the stars whenever he likes, and sleep there if he feels like it. He has done so, but then had to deal with waking up at 4 or 4:30 am when his father came out for the morning milking.