Out of the marvelous as he had known it

Maybe you’ve heard by now that Seamus Heaney died today. Maybe you know his poetry yourself, or maybe you’ve only heard of him because I’ve been posting lines and whole poems from him for years here on the blog. Last March, Heaney came to Emory for a reading and I was lucky enough to meet him and snap a quick photo with him in addition to hearing him read. When I posted the pic on Facebook, several of my friends asked who he was. So I explained, in brief, that he was a Noble Prize-winning Northern Irish poet, and that he was my favorite.

But that’s not all he was. Google his name today and you’ll find moving tributes from his friends and admirers. This one from The Irish Times is especially good, I think. He was important, and his poetry is important, on a broad, international scale. And his poetry is important, too, for individuals like my friend Susan, Heaney is the person who taught her to love Beowulf.

For me, Heaney is the person who taught me love poetry. I had always liked poetry, even though I often found it a bit bewildering–which made me shy away from writing about it usually. And when I settled on Irish literature as my general research field for my master’s thesis, I initially thought I would write on Joyce and/or Yeats, or some other Revivalist (that’s early 20th century, before the 1920s). But Heaney waylaid those plans. The more I read of his work, the more I wanted to read. In the end, there wasn’t really a moment when I decided to write my thesis about his work. His poetry decided for me, and I did my best to follow where it led.

Some of you will know that writing that thesis was formative for me in some important ways–namely, it’s what made me believe in my own writing and ideas, what made me believe that I could and maybe should go on to get my PhD. In large part, that’s due to my amazing thesis director, but it’s also because of Heaney’s poetry. I like to think of literary scholarship as a conversation with a text. I ask my questions in hushed tones and the text whispers back, telling me its secrets and asking me questions in return. And as I read and read and read Heaney’s poems and sounded my voice off of the page margins, they opened up for me in ways that no other poetry had. That gave me confidence in myself as a scholar.

And more than that, his poetry taught me to see the world differently. Because for Heaney, who wrote many poems in response to the conflict in Northern Ireland, political unrest is never separate from the human beings involved. It’s not political groups or parties or factions that he writes about, the nameless, faceless They. It’s individuals with faces and forms and bodies. He humanizes the conflict, and that changed how I understood it, and other, similar violent conflicts.

So when people ask me why I love Heaney’s poetry, I usually say that it’s beautiful and meaningful and important. But that’s only the short answer.

On Leaving Boston

It’s been a year now since I left Boston and headed south. All week I’ve been playing the “what I was doing at this time last year” game–remembering the going-away party at Katie and Jeremiah’s house, my last coffee night with Katie and Abigail, dinner in the North End and cannoli with Kate, Sarah, Kerry, Lauren and Mom on my last night in town, cleaning my condo for the last time with the help of Lauren, Sarah and Matt, my final banana-stuffed French toast at Zaftigs before hitting the road. Although, if I’m being honest, I’ve been playing that game most of the summer, remembering movie nights, trips to the beach, the 4th of July, ice cream trips, church small group, conversations–the moments that I soaked up and savored last year.

And I did a lot of that last summer, the soaking and the savoring. Because I didn’t want to leave. In March (of 2012), when I decided for sure that I was coming to Emory, I initially felt ready to leave. It was, after all, the dragging end of a long New England winter, and by March pretty much everyone in New England is ready to be somewhere else. But as the summer months came along and I started dealing with the details of uprooting and moving away, I found myself wishing desperately that I didn’t have to go. I had been so happy in Boston. I loved my life there, and I was blessed with amazing friendships.

Atlanta, on the other hand, felt like a big empty space for me. I didn’t know anyone there, and I didn’t even know anything about the city. That made leaving even harder and set up what turned out to be probably the hardest year I’ve had. I was often lonely and sad. I missed Boston, and I missed Texas, and I missed my friends and family. I never regretted my decision to come here, but it was hard and lengthy transition.

And although I’m finally beginning to feel settled in here, mostly, I still miss my life in Boston. Last week I got to go back for a short visit and for my friend Kate’s wedding. And it was wonderful. I ate at some of my favorite places, I spent lots of quality time with some of my favorite people, I enjoyed the phenomenal hospitality of Katie and Jeremiah, I attended a beautiful wedding, and I spent some time just enjoying the city. My first day there, I just wandered around visiting some of my favorite places, including my condo and the reservoir where Spur and I would go for walks. I ended up walking all the way from Fenway to Boston Common, and I felt almost like I was chasing an echo of my life in Boston, or a ghost of it. It still felt so real to me, in some ways more real than my life here. As if I could have just slipped back into it like one slips on a pair of shoes. It still felt so comfortable, getting around, knowing where to go, feeling totally at ease with my friends–all things I still struggle with here. For those few days, I felt more like myself than I have since I left Boston, and that was nice. It was exactly the sort of vacation that I needed.

Even though I wish that my first year in Atlanta hadn’t been so hard, and even though I still sometimes wish that I hadn’t left Boston, I’m still so very glad that I went there in the first place. I think I’ll always remember those two years as some of the best of my life. I’m grateful for the experiences I had there and the people who made me feel so loved and what I learned at school and outside of it. Last year as I watched Boston fade into the distance in my rear view mirror, I was sad to be leaving and wished I could stay even just a little bit longer. But more than that, I knew that those feelings were evidence of how good things had been for me there, and I was grateful.

The Gateway Fandom

Earlier this week I was scrolling through the geek section on Pinterest because that’s a thing I do. Those are my people; we speak a common language (or, some of us do. I won’t claim kinship with all of them). And anyway, Pinterest is the easy way to see what’s happening on the interwebs without actually searching stuff out, and since I’m fundamentally lazy that makes it a pretty sweet situation. Anyhow, I was scrolling through the geek boards and I saw this pin:

Aside from the excruciating misuse of a comma in the first sentence and various grammatical errors in the second, which made me cringe, I had to laugh, because Harry Potter was one of my first fandoms. [If you don’t know what that word means, congratulations–you may not be a geek. Basically, it refers to a community of people who are excessively enthusiastic about something, especially books, movies, tv shows, etc. Think Trekkies]. But it wasn’t my first fandom, so I started trying to remember what was. I read Lord of the Rings my freshman year in college and I grew up watching Star Trek and Star Wars, though that was really before I had given in to the dork side so I wasn’t really a full-fledged fangirl over either of those (at least not at that time).

The next thing I can place on the timeline, then, is Stargate SG-1. And, yeah. I was totally an SG-1 fangirl. I looked at the fansites, I knew ALL OF THE THINGS, every episode, all of the connections, even what all of the acronyms stood for. I was kind of embarrassed, but y’all. I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t really want people to know what a geek I was (I was young enough to care about that), so it was like my shameful secret; I found myself quickly shutting down Stargate webpages when people walked into the room. Well, it certainly isn’t the coolest (I mean relatively cool) fandom, but it seems hilariously appropriate that my “gateway” fandom was the one with the actual gateway.

But Harry Potter came the next year. When I finished college and felt sad that most of my friends were moving on and I was staying in Abilene, and sad that I didn’t know where my life was heading, or if I really believed in my dreams anymore, I spent a week at Hogwarts. At that time, only the first five books had been published (the sixth came out later that summer), and I read all five of them in just about a week. And that was it. It was Harry all summer after that. Y’all, I even went to the library and checked out a collection of critical essays on the series and read it (clearly, grad school was a foregone conclusion, even before I knew it). I went to the midnight release for The Half-Blood Prince, although I didn’t go in costume. Remember that thing about me being lazy? It applies double to costumes. It’s not that I’m not geeky enough for cosplay, it’s just that I’m too lazy. (Don’t know what cosplay is? Congratulations again!).

That was also the beginning of what has become a pattern for me in the summer. After an academic year of reading so much stuff that is serious and erudite and often devastating (Irish and postcolonial literatures can be pretty wounding), I tend to retreat from the real world in the summer, and that typically involves a silly obsession and, most often, a new fandom or two. Year before last I read over a hundred comic books, and I read The Hunger Games trilogy in a few days. The year I was diagnosed with thyroid disease, I consumed the Percy Jackson series in about a week, and the Artemis Fowl series after that.

But it’s not always in the summer. I fangirled over Lost for awhile, but they lost me after the penultimate season (I didn’t watch the final season until last year). And Firefly (I mean, it’s basically a Western in space. I am the ideal audience for that show). I’m with the rest of the fandom still in mourning for the untimely cancellation of that show even though it’s been a decade since it was on the air. Earlier this year, I couldn’t stop watching Heroes on Netflix, even though I didn’t have time to watch it. There were some unnecessarily late nights in the fall because of that show. It was equal parts distressing and a blessing for that show to only have four seasons. Okay, probably more of blessing, all things considered, but you know. I need to know what happens after Claire jumps off that tower. Will Sylar go back to his old ways? YOU CAN’T END A SERIES WITH THE WORDS “TO BE CONTINUED.”

[Not all of my obsessions are that geeky. Some are practically respectable. Sports (um, watching them; let’s not be silly), especially basketball (you might guess my team if you know my dog’s name. It’s not the only reason for her name, though), The Olympics every other year, dog training, DIY projects and home design, and gardening are a few things I’ve been intensely interested in from time to time. But those things tend to run a little cooler than the geekier things. I guess I like the fantastic elements of the geeky stuff the best. Horses don’t count on this list. That’s a whole different category of interest and obsession.]

This summer, it’s been the BBC shows. I’m all caught up on Sherlock, I watched six seasons of Doctor Who (the last one isn’t on Netflix, yet, to my chagrin), Merlin and Robin Hood. Doctor Who is definitely my favorite of the bunch, but I’ve enjoyed them all. I also watched Dollhouse (not BBC) because, let’s face it, I’ll watch anything Joss Whedon is involved with. I would bounce to Game of Thrones next, but HBO is selfish and won’t give me a way to watch it without downloading it. And I don’t want to own it. I don’t even know if I’ll like it (except that I will. Of course I will. Anyone who knows me know I will, except that it won’t be my favorite because it’s not comic. But I still don’t want to buy it). But short of that, I’ve now at least dipped my toes in almost all of the big fandoms. When I scroll through the geek board on Pinterest, I get almost all of the posts.

But here’s the thing. I laugh at the jokes and I’m (somewhat) tolerant of the theories and thoughts that fans post about their favorite show/books/what have you. But as I was wrapping up Robin Hood this week, I realized that none of these fandoms are quite my people, because while they want to talk about who should be in a relationship with whom and spin dizzying theories about the innerworkings of their fandom’s universe, I really want to talk about the Girardian rivalry between Gisbourne and Robin or women and power in Robin Hood. Guinevere as the angel of the house and Morgana as the madwoman in the attic in Merlin. Modes of violence and the problematic nature of heroism in Doctor Who. Power and homosocial bonding in Sherlock (or, really in everything). Sexuality and female power in all of the things, or, similarly, the contingency of female power on a more powerful male’s approval. Alternate encoding of goodness for male and female characters. Attitudes toward death and the environment and religion and bodies and disability and modes of morality and fictional versus real places and notions of paradise . . .

Good grief. Grad school did this to me. Grad school is a gateway to ↑ that sort of thinking. Critical theory geek compounded with general geek. Ladies and gentleman, presenting Shanna Early, Geek².

But here’s what I’m thinking: maybe I’ll write about some of this stuff here. Spur, at least, will be glad that I’m not telling her about Girardian rivalries (again).

Eyebrow Grooming: One Woman’s Tale

When I was fifteen, I won a pageant contest pageant and became a rodeo queen. For the first time. It was somewhat out of character for me, given that I was a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl by default–partially because it was easy and partially because I didn’t want to be the kind of girl who was fussed about her appearance and partially because fashion was an enigma that I just couldn’t grasp at all. At that time, I rarely wore makeup because I thought I looked alright without it and see that thing about not being fussed above. I was (am) a shy introvert. So what made me want to do the pageant? Dunno. Couldn’t possibly recreate the logic for you, but some of the women at my barn (it was the first year I had Tigger) told me that I should, and I just wanted to. So I did, and I then I was a rodeo queen. [Some other time, maybe, I’ll tell you all about why being a rodeo queen (twice) was among best experiences of my life, but this post isn’t really about that.]

And as a rodeo queen, I found myself in the situation of having to be fussed, somewhat, about my appearance from time to time. I had to learn how to curl my non-compliant hair, for example. And I mean curl, because after all, I was a rodeo queen in Texas, for crying out loud, and that means BIG HAIR. I had to invent a technique because my hair eats hot rollers for breakfast and a curling iron alone wouldn’t make the curls last long enough. And I had to learn stuff about makeup, too. It was kind of useful in that I learned some things about how to be a real girl (even though the hair and makeup and rhinestones were all somewhat mitigated by the fact that I was regularly tearing around rodeo arenas on horseback at a full gallop, waving nonchalantly at the crowd). Or, at least, I learned how to look like a real girl anyway.

This is one of the photos that sparked the crisis. In retrospect, not so bad, really.

So, anyway, some few months after I had won my title, I needed photos because I was going to be the Grand Marshall of the Christmas parade in Ballinger, TX, and the local paper was going to print a little blurb about it. Well, we hadn’t had time to do professional photos yet, so this occasion involved me, our backyard fence, and mom with a little point-and-shoot camera (which wasn’t digital because no one had digital cameras in 1998). And when we got the film developed, I was aware of two things–first, I look stupid when I pose for photos, and second (and so much more importantly to fifteen-year-old Shanna), EYEBROWS. All I could see when I looked at those photos were these massive, dark eyebrows sitting there under my hat like a couple of wild caterpillars. Eyebrows that were made for (and in, as it were) the 80s. I had a lock-myself-in-the-bathroom teenage panic, y’all. At least internally–I’m not sure that I actually locked myself in the bathroom. But suddenly those 80s caterpillar-brows were all I could see when I looked in the mirror and in every photo.

Something had to be done.

Somewhere in the midst of this crisis, it occurred to me that girls pluck their eyebrows. Had I seen that in movies? Had I read about it in my middle school subscription to Seventeen magazine? Who knows? But that is when tweezers became a weapon in my beauty arsenal.

Did I know what I was doing? No. Y’all, 1998. There was no such thing as YouTube, and even if I had known how to search the interwebs (which I did not–no Google either in those ancient days), I wouldn’t have found the now-available archive of wisdom from every fashion-forward girl with a video phone and the desire to help her wayward sisters learn the secrets of unlocking outer beauty.

Did I ask for advice? Nope. Of course not. I was fifteen, remember? And mortified by my newly-discovered physical defect. So obviously, I was not going to point this out to anyone else. I also didn’t know that there were professionals who shaped eyebrows. I had no idea about that. So I just attacked. And showed no quarter.

And when I emerged from my battle-fury, low and behold, the caterpillars were gone. Better still, I had managed to avoid bald patches and had done a pretty good job of following the natural brow line. After the swelling and redness went away, I felt pretty good about what I had done.

For awhile.

Because sometime later (though I’m not sure how much later it was), I realized that the vanquished caterpillars had left behind, not lovely angles and elegant arches, but horizontal commas. My face was punctuated. Which, all things considered, was still an improvement. Later, when I was an English major, I found it kind of amusingly appropriate to have face commas. Kind of.

This was from my second round of rodeo queen. After tweezing. Face commas.

But the original problem was still there. I looked in the mirror or photos and EYEBROWS. Dark commas that were thick in some spots and sparse in others, most notably on the outer edges where I have scars from a childhood operation. Eyebrows that won’t grow how I want them too. Notice how I switched the present-tense there? It’s because I still have face commas that won’t comply with my wishes, and typically won’t stay nicely in place either.

Cut to recently, when I realized with a cartoonish epiphany (think lightbulb above the head) that women trim their eyebrows to make them behave. Or some women do, anyway. And I began thinking about if maybe I should trim my eyebrows. But since I’m not fifteen anymore, I took my time thinking about it. And then I found out that, due to damaged corneas, I have to imprison my face in glasses for the time being, and I started looking up makeup tips for glasses wearers on the interwebs. And the beauty bloggers (who all look way better in their glasses than I do, so I think they’re cheating somehow) all had slightly different opinions about eyeshadow and liner and whatnot, but every one of them emphasized how important it was to keep your brows well-groomed because glasses draw attention to them.

Me in my fancy new glasses. And eyebrows. And Spur.

And so I stood there in the bathroom looking at my wild face commas and tried to decide what to do. I could go to a professional and have them worked on. But what if the pro did a terrible job and then I had to live with awful eyebrows that I paid for? NO! So back to the interwebs I flew to find out about DIY eyebrow grooming. It’s easy, the bloggers assured me, and proceeded to give tips on how to trim your brows to make them tame. So, tentatively, I got a little pair of eyebrow scissors. And more tentatively, I followed the tips, trimming just a little. And then the next day, I trimmed a little more. And then a little more, until gradually my commas (were still commas, but) were a little less wild. And then I somehow managed to trim a little too close on one of the sparse outer edges near the scar and ended up with a little bald patch. Like someone erased a tiny bit of the comma in the middle.

So now I’m learning more about filling in bald and sparse patches with brown eyeshadow. Which always feels like a dangerous gamble because I have to put on makeup without my glasses, so I’m more likely to be heavy handed than I normally would because I can’t really see my facial features. And there’s always a moment after I put my glasses on when all I can see are my now (somewhat) neatly-trimmed and cosmetically enhanced EYEBROWS. On the upside, I can use the eyeshadow to make them look slightly less like commas. And later in the day I look in the mirror and give myself a Fonzie-esque “Aaaay” because the brows, they’re not so bad.

And that, my friends, is the tale of how I tame[d] my wild caterpillar face commas.

Doing Saturday Right

Y’all, this has been a darn good day. I started out by taking Spur for a walk in the woods at Lullwater park, which was peaceful and invigorating. Then we came home for the inaugural use of my new grill. Marinated chicken breasts and asparagus, mushrooms and grape tomatoes in a blackberry-ginger balsamic vinegar marinate (if you live in Abilene, go to Cordell’s right now to get this vinegar; you won’t regret it). And, I got a wood-chip box and some mesquite wood chips to give my food that wonderful smoky flavor. And let me tell you that this endeavor was wildly successful. I mean, I’m not a grill master (yet) but everything was delicious. I washed it down with a glass of fresh, homemade strawberry basil lemonade, and finished up with grilled peaches over Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream. It was a darn good lunch. And guess what? I assembled my grill correctly and nothing came apart and nothing exploded. So, that’s always good. Then some reading, dishes, and I’m wrapping up the day with The Avengers because why not?

But you know what really made today great? No anxiety, not stress, no longing to be somewhere else, no wishing for something different. Ah, summer, my old friend. I think that we’re going to get along just fine.

What have I been up to?

So, last time I updated my blog, I was procrastinating wildly. Remember how I was writing about my terrible eating habits during finals? Well, let me tell you something. The best thing in the world happened right after that. My mom and her bff Gail (whom I’ve always referred to as my “other mom”) came for a short visit and proceeded to stock my fridge and freezer with groceries and mom-cooked meals to see me through finals so that I wouldn’t have to worry about food. They made ham and cheese chowder, chicken pot pie, pot roast, blueberry muffins, and dozens and dozens of delicious oatmeal cookies and chocolate chip. So I ended up eating a lot of sugar (because I finished ALL the cookies without sharing very many), but good golly y’all. It was FANTASTIC. They also cleaned my house and took me out to eat and were generally wonderful company. I told them they were always welcome back during finals.

After they left, I made a mad dash to finish my two remaining papers in a little under two weeks, had a job interview for a position in our library’s special collections (that’s where they keep all the rare books, manuscripts, archives and whatnot–basically all the coolest stuff in the library), and then I hit the road for some much-needed Texas time. Oh, Texas. There’s just no place like home. I’ve loved living in places with tall trees and vibrant green everywhere and rain and cooler temperatures. All the things Texans dream of. But I think in my heart I will always yearn for big sky and flat prairies. Texas is just stitched into my soul, and nowhere else I’ve been feels quite so right. My visit was entirely comprised of resting, reading, lots of horseback riding (my goodness, how I miss that part of my life!), spending time with the people who love me best in the world, eating my favorite things (foremost of which is anything my brother cooks), and  letting all of the stress and anxiety of the past semester melt away. Folks, I know I’m biased when I say this, but Texas is the best place in the world.

Also in Texas, I got to know my new roommate Grace (hi Grace!) a little better (she’s an ACU pal who’s heading out here to start her PhD in the Fall). After a long lunch conversation, we both concurred that we are going to have a darn good time together. I mean, anyone who is willing to have an extended conversation about Marvel vs DC, Joss Whedon, Star Wars, Star Trek, and even a few non-geek topics is bound to fit right in around here. Well, that and she’s just a fabulous human being. It’s been a really long time since I had a roomate (college), and I hadn’t really expected to have one here because I really enjoyed living alone in Boston. But here, living alone has been lonely and isolating, so I’m really excited and feeling very blessed that Grace is going to be here in August.

So, after I got back from Texas, I started my new job at the library. Eventually, my job will be instruction, so professors will bring their students to the library to learn about what we have and how they can use the materials in our collection and I will teach them those things. Mostly, I’ll be responsible for classes focused on British and Irish literature since that’s my field. But for now, my job is to get familiar with the collection–what’s available and how to find things. So for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been spending several hours a day looking at really, really cool stuff.

(disclaimer: all of the following will mostly be interesting to my literature people and maybe a little silly to the rest of you).

Like, Lady Gregory’s personal editions of Yeats’ poems, complete with inscriptions from Yeats, hand-written revisions to the printed text, new poems penned onto blank pages, and the like. Or AE’s letters to Lady Gregory with goofy caricatures of Yeats. Or a first-edition of The Wind Among the Reeds (Yeats) with sketches from Jack Yeats on the inside covers. Programs from the Abbey Theatre in it’s earliest days. A letter from Sean O’Casey to Lady Gregory. The letter to Yeats in which Maud Gonne responds to the poem “Easter 1916” (she begins, “My dearest Willie, No, I did not like your poem”). Lady Gregory’s address book with J M Synge’s address in it. A letter to the editor against conscription of the Irish into the British Army during WWI signed by Lady G, Yeats, Douglas Hyde, James Stephens, and AE. A holograph (that means hand-written, y’all) draft of Yeats’ play At the Hawk’s Well. A letter from Eamon de Valera (3rd president of Ireland) to Lady G. And I spent a couple of days perusing our almost-complete collection of Poblacht na h-Eireann, a one-page newspaper printed almost daily during the Irish Civil War (1922-3) to report war news specifically for the Republicans (anti-treaty folks. They lost)–so fascinating! You can see that I started by camping out in the Revival/early 20th C stuff. But, seriously. We have Lady Gregory’s papers (really, the whole Gregory family) and some of her library, some Yeats’ papers, Maud Gonne’s papers, and a very rare collection of the Poblacht, so it’s a great place to start. We have loads and loads of papers from contemporary Irish writers, too, to keep me busy, and I’m just starting into the Seamus Heaney collection. I’ll probably make my way through my favorite Irish writers and then move on to the Ted Hugh’s collection, because at some point I suppose I have to learn about our British stuff too.

Suffice it to say, I’m enjoying my work. “Work.” The hardest part is not stopping in the stacks and just looking at ALL the rare and special books.

Also, I saw an Aztec bible. For. Real. (Well, I mean I looked at a facsimile of an Aztec bible, but it was still pretty awesome).

Other than that, I’ve been doing a little yard work, especially battling the ivy in my backyard. Today I trimmed hedges. My arms are still protesting. Did you know that some of the same muscles used in operating manual hedge trimmers are used in typing? Because I’m just now learning that. Between that and wrenching up ivy, I can tell that I’m going to be a little sore tomorrow. Did you know that there are muscles over your ribs that can get sore? Because that’s something else I’m learning just now.

And, I’ve been watching a lot of tv. ‘Cause that’s what happens in the summer. But I’ve been reading some too. I’ve already improved on the amount of reading I did all of last summer by like four books. Turns out, there’s a lot more time for leisure activities in the summer when you’re not trying to sell and buy a home and pack up your life and move.

Anyhow, that’s more or less what I’ve been up to.

 

Frozen cupcakes and other finals pitfalls

Most of the time, I’m committed to healthy eating. I’m not militant about it; you’ll never see me posting things here or on Facebook about why everyone should stop eating  ____  or start eating  ____. I won’t warn anyone about the foods and beverages that will kill you. I won’t shame you for eating things that come out of a can/box/bag/freezer. Partially because I just really don’t have the energy to get worked up about what other people eat, and partially because I don’t like rhetorics of guilt, shame, or fear. And it seems like a particular luxury of our culture, anyway, that we can become indignant over chicken nuggets when people all over this country and the world are wondering when their next meal might be.

Which isn’t to say that I don’t care about any of the debates surrounding food. I do. And like many of you, my relationship with food has changed in recent years. I mostly try to avoid highly processed foods and things made with a lot of ingredients that I don’t recognize. I try not to eat out very often, and I almost never eat fast food. I like to eat fresh produce and homemade meals. And I try to cut down on the amount of sugar and empty carbs and salt that I consume. You know, basically just trying to be aware of what I’m putting in my body, and as much as possible, of where it’s coming from. I’m really not obsessed with my health or longevity, but in the interest of making the most of my life, I’ve come to prefer eating and exercising habits that make me feel good, so that’s really what shapes my eating habits these days.

Except, during finals, things get a little wacky. First, there’s the problem of time. By which I mean, there is no time during finals, or it feels that way. Every little task that takes time away from working on or almost working on a paper feels like a black hole of productivity doom. Things like cooking (and cleaning, and sometimes showers) are just not possible. That means that I eat out a lot more, or buy packages of food in the freezer section.

But there’s also the stress eating, which fortunately is not an especially big problem for me. I’ve never been an eat-your-feelings kind of girl, but I do eat a lot more snacks and chocolate while I’m working on papers. And cookies, if they’re available. And more Dr Pepper. But since I don’t keep a lot of sweets or unhealthy snacks in the house and I can’t possibly go to the grocery store (see: black hole, above), I usually don’t tax my gastronomical boundaries too much.

This semester, though, I have a supply of snickerdoodle cupcakes left over from my birthday (which I celebrated with pizza and cupcakes. and champagne. because I’m sophisticated) and frozen for Later. And apparently, Later is happening now. I’ve got two and half weeks of brutal paper writing ahead of me, and the cupcakes won’t last that long, but I’m thinking that I might need to go get some and stuff to make salads for dinner. Because, like Shakira, my hips don’t lie–at least, not about the jeans size they’ll permit onto my body (they also don’t lie about dancing, but it’s a different truth than Shakira’s). And my digestive system doesn’t lie either or hide its feelings about the things I feed it. So I’m going to attempt to balance out the unhealthy with a little healthy.

You know what else doesn’t lie? The calendar. It’s a strict task-master when you’ve got deadlines looming. Which I do. So, back to work I go. I mean, after I eat another cupcake.

The thing with feathers

“Hope” is the Thing with Feathers

by Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

This has been a long, bloody week in the world–the bombs in Boston, the earthquake in Pakistant and Iran, the explosion in West, the manhunt in Boston, the earthquake in China. There has been a lot of fear, anger, sorrow, pain, etc. But there has also been a lot of love. Have you noticed how, in times of crisis, our tendency as human beings is to seek out and cling to the good? We pass around stories about people who do brave things, who show compassion, who find ways to help, who make small and grand gestures that say you’re are not alone. Our news industry typically trades in doom and gloom and the very worst of humanity, but during these times when the world feels glutted with those things, everyone seems intent on finding the best our species has to offer. We need something solid to hold on to. We need something good. We need hope. But it’s not, I think, about finding hope or keeping it alive. It’s about giving it a megaphone so we can hear it over the other noise. Because I think that our inclination to find the good in worst moments is evidence that Emily Dickinson had it right; Hope is the thing that perches in our soul and never stops singing.

Shocked

I thought about the marathon while I was running this morning. As I did my slow mile and a half, I remembered the sound of the crowd outside my window cheering for runners from morning until mid-afternoon. The local news offering stories about the runners, interviews with winners, footage of the race. The loud Boston College students at mile 21 with their bright poster-board signs of encouragement, trying to out-cheer another school a bit further out. The infectious excitement and the thrill of watching the elite, and the less elite, and the costumed runners come by. The undergrads who were outrageously drunk by lunchtime, and whose revelry would continue well into the night. Spur was never a fan of the noise, but I loved it. It’s one of the unreplicable Boston experiences. I thought about my friends–two of them–who would be running today. I checked the weather conditions in Boston and was relieved to see that it would be a much nicer day for a run than the unseasonable heat last year that rendered many people unable to finish. I missed Boston.

The news is shocking. Explosions near the finish line at the Boston Marathon. Two deaths, dozens injured. Not enough information on any news source, and surely not enough information on the ground either. No one claiming responsibility. Waiting tensely for status updates on Facebook to tell me that my friends who live there are all okay, especially those who ran, and feeling incrementally relieved with each check-in. Wishing I was still there (I wouldn’t have been near the finish, since my place was right on the route at mile 22), not that it would make any difference. I wouldn’t know more or be able to do anything, but there’s something about the solidarity of mourning with a community. I still feel a part of the Boston community; I still feel this tragedy the way I would if I lived there. But here, a thousand miles away, people will mourn without ownership. Boston is not theirs. Copley Square is not personal. This event is not immediate. I feel a little bit displaced, outside, alone.

And relieved, too, that it wasn’t worse. Although it’s not a relief that brings comfort.

And somehow, I’m supposed to collect my shot-scattered thoughts and continue working on a paper. I tend to lose my appetite for academic work in moments like this. It’s hard to see how an essay on Adorno and The God of Small Things can possibly be relevant in a world where someone sets off explosions in a crowd of strangers.

Except that, as I sit here haunted by unarticulated questions that revolve around why would someone, and how do we live in a world that erupts so often in sorrow, in which this event is relatively minor, in which worse things happen, I am somehow comforted to remember that these are the questions that literature and philosophy, including the texts I’m currently working with, ask. The questions that can’t be quantified in numbers or theorems, only expressed in words and in stories. It’s not that there are necessarily solid answers there, though I often find that there are glimpses of answers, or fragments of them. But it softens the blows of life a little to know, to feel deeply that we don’t struggle alone and we question and keen in chorus with other voices.

And I don’t have any answers either, but I’ll leave you with this, from The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty by Sebastian Barry:

“The trouble with the world,” says Harcourt . . . “is we’re not long enough in it, that this famous life of humans is brief and lasts only the flick of a London sparrow’s wing, and still and all, brother McNulty, we’re not suited to it, and even this short scatter of days lies heavy in our hands.” At this he examines his own hands as if he might see time itself lying there, heavily. “Oh, my brother, we are not masters of this life as it turns out.”

Today I pray to the God who knows when a single sparrow falls from the sky for comfort and healing and a peace that passes understanding for the many victims of this tragedy.

Thirty, Nerdy and Surviving

Remember that movie 13 Going On 30? Remember how in the beginning, the main character (who is 13) is reading a magazine with an article titled “Thirty, Flirty and Thriving,” then she wishes that she was 30, flirty and thriving and her wish comes true? You know, the one that’s a different take on Big? No? Well, here’s a handy YouTube reminder:

In past few weeks leading up to my 30th birthday (today), that movie and specifically that phrase have been on my mind. I never wished to be 30. In fact, 30 seemed kind of old to me up to a few years ago. Actually, 30 still seems kind of old to me. Part of me (the part that has a subscription to Marvel’s online database and reads Young Adult fantasy fiction between semesters) thinks that I can’t possibly be that old. I mean, 30 is a respectable age. I’m supposed to know things and be a real grown-up by now, right? But another part of me (the part that prefers going to bed around 10:30 and doesn’t like when the music is too loud and is no stranger to heartburn) feels like it’s about darn time that my age caught up. What can I say? I’m an old soul, but I’m young at heart.

At any rate, I’m definitely not turning 30 with the sophisticated panache that warrants the phrase “thirty, flirty and thriving.” At least, not as it’s used in the movie.

And 30 certainly doesn’t look anything like I thought it would when I was 13 (or thereafter). There are so many things I thought would different. I wouldn’t have believed you if you had told me that I would hit this age

• single
• working on my third graduate degree
• a thousand miles away from my horses
• outside of Texas
• driving a Corolla
• reading comic books.

In fact, Past Shanna would be a harsh judge of 30-year-old Shanna. I’ve written about that before, so I won’t rehearse the details here. (Incidentally, that post also proves the nerdy part of my title). But as I said in that (nerdy) post, and as Jenna learns in 13 Going On 30, what you think you want is not always what you really want. Life choices come with a price, usually. You almost never get what you want without giving something else up. For Jenna, being thirty, flirty and thriving meant giving up her best friend and becoming someone who was selfish and unkind. Because my life isn’t a movie, I don’t have the luxury of knowing how things would have turned out if I were turning 30 with the dreams of my youth intact. What if I had become a professional horse trainer? What if I had gotten married and had a couple of kids? What if I had never left Texas? Would I be happier in that life than I am now?

Who knows? What I do know is that my (former) dream life would have cost a lot of experiences and memories and relationships that have been woven into the fabric of who I am. I live a small life these days, and I dream small dreams. I’m not especially concerned with the future or where my life is headed, mostly because I’m not convinced that I have a lot of control over what happens anyway. And I don’t think I want to, because the journey so far has been full of some amazing surprises that I would have missed if life had gone according to plan. This past year has been tough–probably the toughest I’ve had (hence “surviving” rather than “thriving”)–but I’m not sure I’d trade who I am now for what might have been, even if I could. Thirty, nerdy, and surviving is enough for me.