What I Learned in School Today:

The Bayeux Tapestry is pretty awesome - to learn more, go here.

on having a blog, and writing in general.

You desperately want everyone to read it, and to tell you exactly what they think of it. At the same time, you dread that this will finally clinch the matter for them - you are stupid, and cliched, and have no original thoughts, or you would be if you weren't completely incoherent. Even worse is the thought that they couldn't care less about you and your stupid blog. reading it is a waste of time - it gives no amusement or enlightenment - you are a stupid college student with nothing to say, and should keep your mouth shut in the presence of your betters. After all, the blogs you read are written by experienced and interesting adults who actually have some authority and status in the world. It is presumptuous to think anyone (other than your long-suffering parents, and a handful of friends who are used to you shamelessly dumping manuscripts in their laps and begging for opinions) will bother to read this junk. But you do it any way. practice makes perfect, you say. If you can keep this up, in another twenty years, you might write something worth publishing. You haven't even managed to get anything published in any of the mediocre school rags yet, but you convince yourself that such an outlet is unworthy of your talents, anyway. If you have any talent. Lots of people are aspiring writers. Every last John/Jane Doe out there has a blog, nowadays. You are so behind the curve it isn't even funny. You blench at how many hackneyed phrases you've used just in the last paragraph. You wonder how embarrassed you will be on happening upon any of these writings twenty years from now. You give up. Until tomorrow.

Moving, Part II

My mom was never going to marry a sailor or a pastor. She had moved around all her life, and wanted a nice, steady life from now on.

Then she met Dad.

My dad is a pastor. His first church was in a tiny (literally - there were about 14 people living in the town, and half the district had the same last name) town in the rural Midwest. Us kids (i have two younger brothers) loved it. We lived right across the church and would run barefoot over the gravel parking lot, or in the huge puddles which would fill the plain behind our garage. We had several sets of "grandparents" who loved to treat us, and so we ran wild (well, as wild as PK's ever get ;) - climbing trees, having toad circuses, feeding chickens, building huge snowforts, and sneaking into the abandonded house across the way.

One day my dad got a postcard from the Navy. They were recruiting for chaplains.

The moral of that story is: Never say never.

~*~*~*~*~*~

I was in the second grade when we moved.

I remember standing in the kitchen. Everything was white, and brown - not pristine white, not even all the same shade of white, but the floor and walls and fridge and phone and countertops were all white. Only the cupboards were brown. I was trying to wheedle a snack out of mom, and wondered why she wasn't paying as much heed to me as i felt i deserved.

"Your father wants to join the Navy," she told me, in despairing accents. I wasn't sure how this was supposed to make me any less hungry.

Later my parents told us we were moving to North Carolina. They probably showed it to us on a map, but i was born without the proper wiring to process information formatted in such a way.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Our laundry room was on the end of the house. It was blue, and grey. There was the blue hamper which our dog used to tip over so he could chew on our underwear (maybe he liked the elastic??) and which we still have (unlike its pink counterpart which was mortally wounded in a struggle with a kerosene heater).

Mom was facing away from me, folding clothes. Her movements are precise than usual, yet hurried.

"Now they say we will be moving to Sicily." I thought that sounded prettier than North Carolina. Almost like sister. I'd always wanted a little sister. I went looking for the dog.

~*~*~*~*~*~

I rather liked moving. Everybody paid us a great deal of attention, and made us all sorts of presents.

My aunt came to help us and cut my hair. I remember her and my mom in the toy room, putting signs on the things for express shipment, and deciding to get rid of our loveseat. It was cream with huge dark red and blue flowers all over it. Dad wasn't there - he had gone to Rhode Island to learn to salute properly. Movers came, and packed up everything. It was great fun, rather like camping.

We had a navy blue minivan which stood out against all the white of the house and the empty parking lot. Mom packed us all in, and the dog.

We drove off in a snow storm.

UPDATE: Moving, Part I (links to all the other parts available in Part I)

SPRING IS...not

It's snowing. UPDATE: The ground is, again, pristine and white and beautiful. It covers the piles of mud and trampled grass left by the construction people. Fat flakes swirl and float around the lamppost - Narnia is just through my mud-splattered window. Tomorrow it will be brown and muddy and gross. As i slosh my way through the now icy puddles, i will curse it. But for now, it is beautiful. And i thank God i still haven't put away my winter boots.

It Sucks to be Inland... and a Picture's Worth 1000 Words.

Moving, Part I

I have moved often enough that it's been a rather defining characteristic in my life. And since they always say to write about what you know... The first move i remember took place when i was around four. Naturally, i don't remember much; all i do hold of that place in my memory is of the move, and i have no idea how accurate those memories are. I remember my grandmother came down to help us. I was tired, but excited. All i remember of the house is small room - there was just space enough for my parents bed. There was a lamp on a nightstand next to it which made the yellow wooden floor seem to glow. The rest of the house was empty. It was late at night. Then i am climbing up, up into the truck bed. There were stars in the sky. Dad was driving - he had hair. An old pair of black and blue flip-flops were on the ground. It was just Dad and me. There was a yellow bag in between the seats - Peanut M&M's (his favourite). Even though it was past my bedtime, he let me have some. Not much, is it? UPDATE: Moving, Part II UPDATE: Moving, Part III UPDATE: Moving, Part IV UPDATE: Moving, Part V

A Romantic's View of Amsterdam

Dear B----, I have fallen in love. You've met Her before - years ago, when you were flying home from Germany, you had two glorious hours with Her. Do you not remember? She is eminently practical, yet not at all lacking an appreciation for the finer things in life. If you look into Her eyes you can glimpse Her ancestors scratching out a foundation from the medieval mud, and Her struggle with the wild Sea. The Sea does His best to destroy Her, but She perseveres, and harnesses His strength. He has become Her most compassionate enemy and most bitter friend. She was brought up very zealously and still hides a passion in her breast, but has learned that strong beliefs are not usually worth the blood one pays for them. Once She was very wealthy and vestiges of that glorious and exotic time remain. Though there is, perhaps, some regret, there is no wistfulness in Her air when She speaks of it. That time is past. Since then She has suffered greatly. A distant Cousin once sought to purify Her, imprisoning and torturing Her for a time in His repulsive reich. She starved, was desolate, but She endured. She was not defeated. In Her quiet, patient way she fought Him and in the end Her patience was rewarded. They have since reconciled, but haunting memories still touch Her dreams. I cannot, and will not even attempt, to fully catalogue all Her quirks and charms. Yet I must give some impression of Her. One scene in particular remains emblazoned on my memory. I have not the gift of brush and palette; nevertheless I will attempt to follow in the footsteps of the great and paint for you a picture with my pen. It was morning, of course, and though rather late (for you B---. I was, I admit, still yawning) and the Sun was still just getting up. The sky was a pale blue, but in the bottom left of the horizon, just in the corner, were the beginnings of light - pale pink in colour. It was almost as if the Sun was blushing, embarrassed to get up so late in Her house, for She had been up long before. Indeed, there is reason to doubt She'd ever been to bed. Her canal, like an exposed artery, rippled in the slight wind so that it seemed covered in glistening fish scales and reflected the Sun's pale shame. In fact, it seemed to glow even brighter than the sky, and looking at the water, it seemed to me that I myself was but a reflection in Her life-blood. The true world was just out of reach, but somehow attainable through the water if only I were brave enough to reach for it. The narrow streets on either side of Her canal are of brick, as were the most of the tall, lean buildings that lined her. Usually red brick. She is much, much older than the modern automobile, but She accommodates them in Her fashion. She has no great dislike of them, but they are not at all her favored form of personal transportation. She prefers bicycles. Squished beside the artery, hovering tenuously on a ledge between pavement and perdition, there is a great long line of these horseless carriages parked nose-to-tail. In spite of Her aristocratic background, Her favourite mode of travel is "op de fiets." In any sort of weather and wearing any sort of garb. They were all over the railing on the canal bridge. It is practically impossible to distinguish one bike from another - it is merely a mass of tires and handlebars and horridly uncomfortable seats. Unlike the cars, which are usually shiny and in good condition, most bikes that you see are definitely used. Otherwise, as She has an unfortunate (though slight and perfectly reasonable) disregard for personal property, they get stolen. Sometimes they do anyway - She is human, after all. Looking at Her buildings can be a rather disconcerting experience. They are all right next to each other with no space between them at all, and I was surprised not to feel claustrophobic. At first they looked rather odd, but quaint and kind of cute with their gabled roofs and huge, elaborately decorated furniture hooks near the top of each building. They are tall and narrow, like arrows pointed towards the sky. Yet for all their similarities, each one is different, as if each shaft in the quiver has its own unique lineage and purpose. As I examined them more closely, their age and peculiar beauty were opened to me, and I came see them as open, even expressive. The disproportionately large windows were inviting, as if welcoming the outside world into the parlour, taming and domesticating it. I started to feel slightly off-balance for I could see that the world refused to be domestic, and each building had grown and expanded in its own way as these cramped townhouses tilted crazily in all different directions. I realized that She, the world, and the Sea are perpetually dancing, subtly, slowly waltzing through the ages. Ever so slowly, so very slowly, I was drawn into the dance. All my love (that I can spare), K---------

the smallness of it all

I was reading my medieval history book the other day, and i started to get this strange feeling, as if i were a slinky bouncing back and forth in time. Or not quite that, but... Time is linear, they say. Well, it is, but i don't think that's the end of it. Do you ever feel like Time is a sort of telescope, pointing at something? And sometimes you just barely manage to catch a glimpse down the barrel? You can see Time all at once, as in everything is happening on top of each other, and you can see the patterns, and you feel a strange unity with all people in the past and present and future. Truly there is nothing new under the sun. At the same time there is a strange, unfulfilled yearning for you know not what, and you wonder if you are looking up or down the telescope barrel, and if what you saw was the focus of the telescope or the person doing the focusing. you think of all of the small, seemingly insignificant details that have made you who you are and have brought you to this, specific place... and of all the things you thought were significant but aren't, really - at least, not anymore. Time is flying, running up and down, twisting and turning like some vast rollercoaster (and for some reason, it's always blue - dunno why), and all of the sudden it's over, and you're you, and you think how irrelevant it is that you're sitting on a faded green couch that you bought for $100 at a thrift store, drinking a can of apple juice.... everything is slightly out of focus and you think you know how those people in movies feel when they're in slo-mo... and all those famous names and places one can't help hearing about - they're given context. they were born, raised, etc. and you wonder if anyone you know will make it into a history book, and how strange it will seem... you imagine trying to explain to your children what life was like "back in the nineties" or how you thought that those people telling you planes were crashing into the WTC must be joking, and how you felt that after that everything was different, yet nothing had changed or how people used to not have internet and how weird cellphones were when they first come out. You imagine them laughing at the silly outfits people wear in your yearbooks, just like you laugh at your parents... you wonder how people can look at the vast expanse of history and the smallness of you and not believe in a God, and you wonder how, if there is a God, you ever came to believe he might spare thought on your slight concerns, such as finding your nail clippers for that hangnail that's really bugging you and which it now seems almost conceited of you to notice. then you look back at your book and remember that you have a test tomorrow and you really have to study, and where did you put those nailclippers?

March

Umm... what happened to February? I swear it was here a minute ago... I still miss the Netherlands. I didn't think I could become so attached to a place, ever, much less in only two weeks. It's exam time, with Spring (not Easter) Break coming up soon. Blaargh!!!