Carson, Case, and Ty

Two of the three boys that I spend most of my time looking after in Children's Ministry wound up in the church office yesterday with medical teams hovering around them.

It has occured to me, by the way, that I seldom mention girls in my comments on the kids. There are two reasons for this: A) in our class the ratio of boys to girls is 3 to 1, and B) the girls that we do have are for the most part incredibly well-behaved. This means that I, who have somehow or other become the person on the spot to comfort inconsolables, prevent prison-breaks, and pull apart antagonists, am seldom needed to care for the female contingent of our little class.

I resume. There are three little miscreants (of course you must know that I worship the ground they walk on) who between them demand most of my attention.

They are quite different from one another. Carson, all things considered, is the mildest of the three. He has thick hair like a cap of solid gold and big, slightly tilted green eyes. They remind me of two goldfish sunning themselves just below the surface of a garden pool. For the rest he looks elfin, like Galadriel's elves, all warm amber. Carson is the one who wanders over and sits down in my lap for no good reason, as if completely on a whim, and likes to be held. He plays nicely with the other children, keeps himself to himself, and I would think his smile perfectly charming if I did not have Case's to compare it with. His parents have taught him to blow kisses to all of us when they come to take him away. It's not something I would quite want my child to do (exactly why that is I do not know), but I admit he does it very well.

At any rate, yesterday Carson was the most serious medical case. He threw up in the middle of the first half-hour, and they called part of the medical team out of the meeting to check up on him. His parents were also called. Gentle reader, I hope that you have never had to kneel beside a cot on which a child whom you love is lying very still and very pale, with a terrible glaze over his eyes and limpness in all his small body. I hope you never kneel there, stroking an unresponsive hand, and look up to see the frightened faces of his parents. His forehead was hot when I touched it. The doctor did not seem worried---I knew there was no real cause for alarm. Just a little stomach bug or something. But when it is a child suffering, any illness is magnified a thousandfold in the mind. I withdrew myself after giving all the details I could, and returned to the classroom rather sober.

Case, a direct contrast to Carson in coloring and temper both, was in one of his moods. He is a creature of moods altogether, willfull and sparkling by turns, with sometimes a sadness over him so pitiful that it makes you want to cry. He sobbed harder than usual against my shoulder when his father left him, but soon there were smiles and little exploding stars of mischief in his blue, blue, awe-strikingly blue eyes.

I am not overly fond of blue eyes in others because I have them myself and therefore like a little variety from what I see in the mirror every day. But Case's eyes would arrest attention anywhere. They are the clear blue of a spring morning, and at the same time somehow the delicate, almost melancholy blue of October twilight. Fringed round with dark lashes, I believe it is their mysteriousness that ultimately makes Case's eyes so unforgettable. I can never tell exactly what he is thinking, which in a two-year-old is remarkable. His eyes say everything, all at once, and I cannot sort out one message from another before it is gone.

Aside from these eyes, Case has unusually pale skin and very dark, fine, straight hair, curling only slightly at the tips. He looks like the other kind of elf, the Rivendell child. If Carson makes me think of golden wheat and harvest-time, Case makes me thing of the heavens and places where stars are born, as I was reading of in a book on the cosmos the other day. He also has Peter Pan's own reckless, graceful, athletic way with him, which is how he got into trouble yesterday.

We were playing. I was sitting on the floor in front of the doorway with my legs stretched out before me, ankles crossed. It it my usual guard post because I can survey the room from it, watch out for any potential injuries or squabbles, and be on ground-level for any child that comes wandering up. Well, in this instance, Case didn't "wander" up at all. He took up a position half-way across the room, then put his little head down and pelted at me and threw himself bodily into my lap.

"Good grief!" I said, astonished. He grinned at me, sparkling and shimmering like anything. Then he went back and did it again. This time, prepared, I caught him. I saw that he was used to playing this game (as his mother confirmed to me later), so I let him draw back for a third run. At that moment a worker from the next room over poked her head in to ask me if we had any... I forget what it was. Anyway, at the same moment Case took his third run, misjudged the distance, and slammed his whole chest into my leg.

"Oh, sweetheart," I sighed. He had knocked the wind out of his chest, poor darling, and sat there trying to breathe and cry at the same time. I hated to see the look of surprise and pain darken his beautiful eyes. I gathered him up. "Oh, sweetheart. Why did you do that to yourself?"

Why do we do things to ourselves? Why?

He was soon all right again, and forgot his hard knock. I didn't, however, and as he continued to bounce off the walls all morning, I wasn't exactly surprised when I found myself just barely too late to prevent a nose-dive. I picked him up firmly. "Beloved, you have got to stop hurting yourself."

"Better take him along to the office," said my room leader. "It's policy to have them looked at whenever they hit their heads."

So for the second time that day I took my child to the office, and waited for the medical team and the worried parents, and thought about pain and fragility, this time the self-caused sort. After a little while I went back to our classroom. Ty greeted me at the gate.

Ty is only half Asian, but he inherited dark hair (shaved close to his head) and large, brilliant black eyes. He is probably the most intelligent child in the class, and also the most dangerous. If there is any trouble to be gotten into, any poisonous or dangerous substance to be tasted, any socket to poke one's finger inside, any wall partition to squeeze behind, Ty will do it. He is also passionately fond of bubbles and crackers, will scream your ear off when he has a mind to---and when he laughs up at you it seems as though he pulled all the merriment in the world into those lustrous eyes of his. Yesterday Ty was my saving grace; for once he did not get into any trouble worse than trying to climb into one of the toy chests.

Sometimes I wonder what my boys will grow up to be. Case will be instinctively loved wherever he goes; he is one of those boys who breaks the hearts of young girls merely by being his own shining self. At the same time he knows, young as he is, the power of his own charm. I pray he will learn as he grows older not to abuse it. I do not love him for his inconstancy and fickleness, but I do love him for his bright courage and winsome depths. He may be a leader among men when he grows up---or if not that, he may have the gift of seeing into people's souls and saying strength into their hopes, comfort into their fears, rebuke into their sin. His father is a pastor-in-training and his mother is a gentle lady. I hope and trust that they will be proud of him.

Carson? He likes to be alone much of the time. He is also a practical little fellow and has a frank, friendly way. Carson is steady and sweet where Case is changeable and full of maddening intrigue. Carson has no secrets, but he also has few interests and no ambition. I hope he will be what his parents seem to me---loving, good-tempered, sensitive, and kind. He could do far worse.

And Ty! Oh my sainted aunt and all her little lace caps! Ty will conquer the world and then, not satisfied with that, he'll conquer the stars. Or if he is exceptionally lazy he will simply become the next Bill Gates. I only wonder whether there is a great heart, as well as great delight and great intelligence, behind those great dark eyes of his...? For if Ty has a fault, it is that he shares with Case in a trait that I could almost call heartlessness. Neither of them seem to know, as Carson certainly does, what it is to want somebody to love you.

Those are my three boys, as different as any three little boys in the world. And I have lost my heart---one of my hearts, for I begin to wonder how many I have to lose---to them.

High Presure End-of-Unit Workdays Are Especially Quotable

“Christy, you’ve got to understand that I’ve been reading the Summa all afternoon, looking for references to infused righteousness.” – Laura
“She’s been wandering vaguely, quite of her own accord, looking for infused righteousness.” – Mom
“Maybe there’s some over on Nate’s side…” – Laura, heading out the door

Christy, talking to herself, said “Why am I listening to sad music?” David obligingly burst into song, and this is what he sang:

Oh, Christy…
Life is horrible
Sometimes puppies die
In the rain

The office laughed.

“Davy-lad!” – Nathan, striding purposefully into our midst.
“I didn’t do it!” – David
“End my suffering” – Nathan, holding out a blue CD that David apparently was supposed to fix at some point.
“Oh. I should’ve done it.” – David

“You mean it wasn’t Cortez who ‘stood silent upon a peak in Darien’?!?! But I memorized that poem for a recitation! Oh Keats, Keats, how could you!” – Christy
“Nevertheless, it was Balboa.” – Laura

“Ah, the great smiley-face wars…” – Mom, reminiscing with Laura
“I have allies.” ::pause:: “Except all of them are fired” – Laura, regretfully

“So Laura is going to marry Cortez, and Christy is going to marry Mr. Chuckleford…” – Casey
“Hey! I didn’t say I wanted to marry him!” – Laura
“Just because I named my desk fountain ‘Mr. Chuckleford’ does not mean that you can go around planning matrimonial alliances!” – Christy

“I’m trying to decide which of our loathings need to be pampered.” – Mom to Laura

“Let me stand here and stroke your shoulder in an affirming manner.” – David to Christy
::Brittainy bursts out laughing::

“I’m just feeling elated at having finished Week 19. Everybody has their day; everybody has their ‘I finished 19’! This is mine.” – Casey, who is admittedly bouncing off the walls.

“Christy, I have questions traipsing down the lane towards you…” – Alex, who is Casey’s younger brother and Christy’s minion and favorite brother-in-law
“Are they nasty fish-eyed questions?” – Laura, referring to an earlier Office conversation.
“No, nasty fish-eyed questions don’t traipse. They stalk.” – Christy

“I didn’t come up with the topless bananas!” – Casey
“No, Mom did.” – Christy

“Have yourself a merry little supplement.” – Mom
“Yes, well…” – Laura
“Well? Isn’t it a merry little supplement?” – Mom
“Well, besides the fact that it’s the Council of Trent…” – Laura

“So Laura has a crush on Cortez?” – Alex, confused.
“Not a crush! We’re going out.” – Laura
“Oh.” – Alex, nonplussed

“You’re going to give Nathan kisses?” – Christy to Laura
“There are all kinds of kisses, Christy. There’s chocolate and thimbles and…” – Mom
“I think you should give Nathan thimbles, Laura.” – Brittainy
Later …..
“Casey should save all her thimbles for David.” – Christy
“Well, that’s right. She’s a married lady.” – Mom
“So Laura, not being a married lady, should scatter her thimbles abroad?” – Christy
“I meant ‘thimbles’ quite literally! The hard and round kind!” – Laura

“So Casey, when did you decide that Laura had to marry Cortez of Aztec fame?” – Christy
“We’re not getting married. We’re dating. The relationship is not going to work out.” – Laura

“I just encouraged Laura’s affections towards him…” – Casey on Cortez
“Affections I didn’t know I had…” – Laura

“Alex, cover your ears please” – Christy, preparing to explain to Mom exactly why she thinks that we need more warnings for the younger students’ Hamlet book.

Amaris

Yesterday. Children's Ministry. We workers and a little Indian girl named Amaris.

It was a battle royal.

For the past six weeks this child has chained her poor parents to her side with screaming, so that one or the other of them is forced to sit with her in Children's Ministry throughout the Sunday service. In a way I admire her persistence and single-mindedness. She has the finesse of an artist in giving tantrums. Amaris also has the face of a fawn (right down to her large, liquid-brown, black-lashed eyes) and the suspicious nature of a gangster-lord from the 1920's. During the first few weeks she would not so much as allow a Children's Ministry worker to touch her hand or offer her a cracker. I have never seen such an untrusting child.

We tried once or twice to keep her and let her cry a little in hopes that she would calm down, thus allowing her parents to stay in the meeting. Always, she has outlasted us. Yesterday, our numbers being managable and she no longer having the excuse of finding us or our room to be unusual surroundings, I suggested to her father that we try it again. He eventually agreed, handed her over, and departed as the tantrum began.
And what a tantrum it was. We agreed amongst ourselves that, since her crying had improved by some degrees over the weeks and she was no longer likely to choke or make herself actually sick, we would try to wait her out and break her of the notion that she could get what she wanted by crying for it. We therefore endured a solid twenty-five minutes of wholehearted (but not desperate or dangerously passionate) tantrum.

I held her, but all of us behaved as if she were not crying at all. I conversed with the other children and turned over books and toys for my own amusement (I have learned that it is no use trying to amuse a really determinedly crying child with toys, as this will only encourage them by lending attention to their designedly miserable state).

Sometimes I put her down when the crying grew worse, to signify my displeasure with her tears. She would run after me across the room when I did this, screaming to be picked up. Which I did, putting her down again when her cries rose in volume. All this went on for some time and she sobbed single-mindedly throughout. I tell you, I had to admire her. It is not often that I meet a creature as absolutely stubborn as myself.

Eventually she began to grow very tired with crying, and we agreed that, though we should very much like to win the battle, and thus the war, it wasn't worth it to let her make herself sick after all. So we finally gave up and took her down the hall to the office to have her parents called. The moment I set foot outside the gate with Amaris in my arms, she stopped crying. I was not surprised; she had known all along exactly what she wanted, and how to get it. Now that she saw her demands were about to be met, she ceased. Besides she really was tired of crying, poor child.

"You know what you're after," I said to her, "and you know you've won."

But then as we went down the hall, I wondered to myself... had she won? When we got to the office I asked those in charge whether it was permissible for me to walk Amaris about the halls, provided that this would quiet her and that I would be accompanied at all times by another Children's Ministry worker (as per the regulations). They told me that this was not only allowed, but desirable in order that the parents might remain in the meeting if possible.

I secured another worker who was willing to walk about with me, and we began the experiment. By now my arms ached with long holding, and by now Amaris, suspicious as she is, had grown so exhausted that she actually suffered herself to lean against me. We paced the halls slowly, I waiting uneasily for her to realize that her parents were not about to appear and take her away from all this vale of tears.

To my surprise, she did not start up again even after it must have become clear to her that her parents were not around the next corner. Instead she was actually quiet as my fellow worker and I talked quietly in the old lobby, or walked slowly up and down the halls. I don't mind telling you, I was shocked. She remained quiet, and even relaxed more and more in my arms, until it was nearly time for the parents to come get their children. We took her back to our room, fully expecting the tears to begin afresh. But they did not. Amaris sat (I might even say "reclined") in my lap absolutely quietly for the last ten minutes until her father came to get her, all but asleep in my arms.

We permitted ourselves a quiet round of congratulations after she had gone. Amaris the unconquerable had actually stayed in Children's Ministry, without either parent, for the period of an entire church service. Not only this but she was actually quiet and relatively peaceable for almost half of it.

I came home exhausted, but elated. When I went back for the second service and heard how excellent the sermon was, and reflected that her parents, visitors, had gotten to hear all of it, I was even more grateful that we had persevered. I don't know what next week will bring: perhaps a repeat tantrum, perhaps not. But I believe that we have won an important battle, and may yet win the war.

After she had gone, I wondered what connection there might be between the tantrums of a little girl and the spiritual tantrums of grown people like myself. How often, I thought, have I been an Amaris? Especially, how many times have I refused all comfort because I preferred to wallow in misery, or in the memory of how others have ill-used me?

It was a highly instructive morning.

Long Golden Days

How good it is to play at last! How good, how good good good to be able to breathe! How good to sing because I want to sing!

This morning, Brittainy being gone all day to visit a homeless shelter, I got up and took Charity off to the library to return books. We had a silly, adorable time, complete with fruit parfaits (fruit, granola, yogurt) from McDonald's. Once home we did not go in, but sat on the front step. Marjorie came out all snuggle-barefoot-pyjama-clad to talk with us.

Mama and Daddy appeared next, and we all adjourned to the deck to admire the new fountain and the spice-garden planted around it. We girls chattered and sang like magpies, drinking grape juice (O sweet sparkling purpleness!) in the gold-green-breeze-clad summer morning.

"Berrying!" Somebody said. "Let's go berrying!"

Daddy had to reconstitute a piece of work that had been lost at the office, but Mama and Charity and Marjorie and I all scrambled to find appropriate clothes for berrying. We took long-handled wicker baskets. Charity wore (I am not joking) a sunbonnet of straw with brown ribbon ties. "If I had known you were going to wear a bonnet and look adorable," Mama said later, "I would have brought my camera!"

There is a six-hundred-acre park historic park laid out all around our house. We, like the royal family of some old fairy tale, live just on the edge of it. Consequently it was quite possible for four women to spend the entire morning wandering along mown paths, sometimes in sun, sometimes in shade, sometimes near the old stone ruin, sometimes in places I am sure no one but the park wardens have ever seen.

Parks seem to be shockingly under-utilized in our part of the country, which moves me to compassion for those who sit in buildings all day, but also fills me with elation, for because of it we have a private kingdom. Anything could happen in that forest!---adventures or magicians or princes or enchantments---anything!

We came home with baskets respectably fullish (ours was a pleasure-trip, not a really serious berry-picking trip) of blackberries and raspberries. Tomorrow we shall pour them in handfuls over brownies and vanilla ice cream for Sunday Lunch.

Yesterday evening, Brittainy and I took our run through a new part of the park and found heaps of raspberries. We shall have to go back and pick them soon, before the foxes and deer do. Speaking of which, gentle reader,
I report that we saw a deer and two foxes. The run (which included some walking) took 45 minutes; I will have leg cramps for perhaps another 36 hours; it was glorious!

I spent this whole afternoon reading and cleaning. It is so good to have time for both! I read one of the Dorothy Sayers stories---Gaudy Night, but I did not really seriously read it. I only skimmed the good parts. Then later in the afternoon I took a turn through Livy's History of Early Rome because it looked so darkly lustrous and splendid, sitting on my shelf (it is an Easton Press edition). I also cleaned out my blue-and-brass trunk preparatory for school, and mused my way through some old letters that made me smile tenderly over my foolish former self.

Today I began to wear a key on a silver chain around my neck. Don't ask why---there is a reason, but you will almost certainly never know it.

When Brittainy comes home, she and the High Queen and I will share a pleasant few hours watching one of the quietest movies I have ever seen: The New World. Why? I'm not sure. Because we feel like it, I suppose. Brittainy and I try to keep a lid on how many movies we watch, since there is much else to do, but it being the weekend we indulged in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical version of Cinderella (my family calls it "The Magic Cinderella"), and tonight will indulge again in a completely different piece of art.

We have been expanding our tastes, watching each other's favorite movies that the other has never seen and even foraging into unexplored territory such as (gasp!) Indian cinema. You would not believe me, gentle reader, if I told you how amazingly gifted the Indians are as storytellers, even when they dress the story up in Hollywood tinsel. They may wear Hollywood, but their souls are much deeper than that. What a joy to discover, for example, the movie Devdas!

To our list of new experiences this summer I must add tennis. Brittainy and I bought rackets and now try to play four days out of seven, with other days reserved for yoga, weights, and running. We are improving quickly, though we still laugh at our ineptitude and struggle to perform a respectable volley.

I have so much. It overwhelms me. But how true it is that this perception is a matter of perspective. There is so much I could pine for that I choose not to, and some difficult things that must be endured, about which I choose not to complain. Strange, wonderful, but true, what I read so long ago in The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment---that contentment is a matter of suiting our wishes to God's disposition in our lives, and of framing our souls to be content with our circumstances, rather than the other way round. Three years later, I feel that I have learned the secret of contentment, and have for some time now been living the gold-on-silver loveliness of it. How grateful I am to have had this instruction, and to have been enabled by grace to grow into it!

The Unguarded Corner

There's a corner near my house that I drive around at least twice a day. It's an ordinary suburban four-way intersection with a light. On the northwest corner is the Liberty gas station. On the northeast is a 7-11. The southeast and southwest corners are home respectively to another gas station (I forget which brand) and a small shopping plaza: CVS, nail salon, beer and wine, a few restaurants, McDonalds, etc. I usually come from the north and turn west, or from the west and turn north. Sometimes I go south to north, and, much more rarely, east to west.

There's a bus stop where people wait, and since the metro isn't far there are a lot of people coming through at rush hour. There is always someone trying to get across one of the streets to or from the 7-11 or the shopping plaza. Sometimes, late at light in the summer, there are gangs of teenagers hanging out in the 7-11 parking lot. Because I live in a multicultural area, you can see every race at this corner: Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern... they all come through.

It is a wonderful corner for seeing people. I don't mean watching people; you can do that anywhere. I mean seeing people. I mean catching the unguarded moment, the second or two (or ten) when all the walls are down and what shows on a person's face, in his eyes, is exactly what he's feeling.

I've seen young men---boys, really---flying down the north hill on their bikes with "YES!" in the proud uptilted corners of their eyes. I've seen women laughing, bitter, dreamy, bleak, vain, and serene. I've seen old men who seem to bear the weight of years on their trembling shoulders. I've seen middle-aged men trying to regain something---who knows what---from the sleek leather seats of their red sports cars.

Many look like they wish they could get life over with, so exhausted are they with empty struggles. Others are businesslike, trudging forward because that is what they do. Some are determined. Some are exultant. Others seem simply stubborn. A few are really happy, throw-your-head-back-and-laugh happy.

Almost every day I see something on my unguarded corner, and I wonder about the million million lives I will never brush against. What fears, what hopes, what sorrows and joys, does life hold for the child born on the same day, at the same hour, perhaps even in the same minute, as myself? Who is that child? Will I ever meet him? Will I ever know her? What will his or her end be?

I love my unguarded corner. I shall miss it when school rolls round again.

Ah, Tovorisch!

Stumbled across independent PHC forum and found old debate going splish-splash about mandatory chapel attendance. Some want backpedal to honor system, but notice none who experienced such, so not compelled by argument. Others standing on grounds of sickbed, what business has school to drag from point of death for glazed coughing sit-up session because all sick-days used up? No huhu there, but, as other pointed out, malaria victims almost certain to get exceptions if they ask.

Why have to ask, tovorisch? Because it's a community, gospodin. My dinkum word, is enough to make ache for return to Rigid Tradition. May be only way make people to do necessary thing in small town like college---plain old superstition and "always done it." Free speech and democracy blistering headache to decent orderly behavior. Doubt not Founding Fathers felt same way during some hot afternoons Constitutional Conventionalizing. Try and prove how dizzy-circles-speeches helped process of Our Fair Nation building (not sarcastic, just saying).

Sprechen of which, something to be said for brainless habit? Who makes serious huhu about engagement bobtisms? "always done it this way." Why not treat Chapel same fashion? No fuss, just enjoyment of school tradition. Wonder whether have got the whole honor thing wrong---maybe need less sense of "honorable to do this" and more of "DISHONORABLE not to, so don't muck up!" Imagine Chapel skip similar crimson of shame as calling D1 "Mount Vernon," only hope-against-hope Chapel blush is more vivid shade. Funny what grows sacred, nyet? Funny what sacred isn't treated so, nyet? Funny.

In good old honor days now so dimly remembered seem golden, was pressure of peer-frowns on skippers, but now? "Ah, tovorisch, bling-bling for you! Would myself except hassle of RA one-on-onesie. Not even sure Chapel is biblical. What Hebrews mean by "do not neglect to meet together," anyway? This isn't church, my dinkum brother. Quite right. Would myself, except..."

And on and on. Wish privately sometimes Chapel were something students invented all by our diddums---would all fight for it then, come bombs in Washington or chicken strips in dining hall. Can't seem to realize own self that community is mutual responsibility. O my brother, your dishonor is my dishonor. I don't like dishonor, will jolly well see that you don't muck up. Enough dishonor under old honor system, collective body lost right to attend on principle and now compelled. Well gospodin, as my wise mother says, "if won't rule yourself, will be ruled." Why make huhu? Weeping, wailing, howling at moon, what for? Earned it. Smack-dab deserved it. And to fourth generation, still paying dues for it.

Crime and punishment, O my little brother. Only difference between We and Administration is A. members behave better---pay up consequences of enforcing rules without murmur, even unto Founding Fathers scale headache of applying card system to us wailing wallers. Said we'd attend. Didn't. Now paying up with tears of anguish. Said they'd enforce if Honorables broke word. Like Old Testament covenant, kept word even when Honorables didn't, and accepted nasty consequence of administering cards, which undergrads hail as castor-oil (so hard to keep track of Chapel cards, Tovorisch? How will ever manage in Big Old World?).

Hear any huhu from A. members? No, tovorisch. They grit teeth and gird up and do as advertised. Only happens to be enforcement, so cause of gnashing and more wailing among Would-Be Honorables.

What's that, gospodin? Weren't here when First Student sinned over honor code chapel system? Shouldn't have to pay up? Nonsense! Whole human race still sinning because of First Parents. Thinkest thou, O my little brother, that thy generation wouldst not sin? Note example of Israelite generations, tovorisch. All flesh is as grass.

Ever ask yourself, gospodin, why you want to make with chop-chop of Chapel bonds? Plan to spend the extra hour in Scripture? Maybe praying? Is time to be honest, tovorisch, even if not Honorable. Own self admits: want it because nobody thank-you-curtsey should tell what to do thank-you-curtsey. Am People. Am THE People. HAVE RIGHTS.

Mistake. Rights forfeited in distant past generation Israelite desert-wanderers who mistook Promised Land for Ettinsmoor. Tovorisch, own selves are not in position to argue biblical-ness of present Chapel system. Would be like chronic liars preaching word-perfect Hebrew-and-Greek lesson on truthtelling. Accurate as bees-knees, MAYBE, but no weight, gospodin, no weight. Where no living is, will be no believing from on-lookers. And is bees-knees? What harm, tovorisch, to worship God an extra hour? Where is biblical sin in golden opportunity? Forced, Tovorisch? Is free country. Who forced to come to Chapel-attending school and make seal on scroll of rules? Same matter, who forced to break word? Which is sin, Tovorisch?

My dinkum opinion, gospodin, is honor system can be regained. But building takes lifetime; tearing down takes eye-blink. Four years, one whole generation of students needed, who consider personal shame to misplace chapel cards, miss chapel unnecessarily. Need flocking and herding to Chapel, sheep both outside and inside sheepskin, no wolves.

One generation such, then maybe next has ground to stand on and will not need to shout "honor"--will have it. One generation of no huhu, no wailing wall, just attempt to humble selves and find what good is there to find---and there IS, my dinkum word---in Chapel. Found it own self spite of self and self's own diddums self-righteous snobbery.

Find out what is to gain before giving old shove. Own it, O my little brother. Defend with lifeblood. Think what will become of twentieth generation if fourth sneers at congregant worship. Think which tradition would rather have as brainless habit---complaint or gratitude? Would have traditions of seize every opportunity for voice of song and jeweled hush of heaven-thoughts, even though some days boring, some days rainy, some days not enough sleep? Or would welcome each chance to howl at moon because life so hard hard hard? Will be harder by and by, tovorisch. Will wish someday for schedule-space to sing and hush in, O my little brother.

Think it over, gospodin. Is real conscientious objection? Or would fight for it like dragon's-teeth soldiers if were your tradition? How brainless is habit of complaint about Chapel? Tovorisch, live by complaint is die by complaint. No glory lives behind back of such. Own dinkum word from one for whom School of Hard Knocks was invented.

O my little brother, ultimate question is has present path brought brightness to eyes and bushiness to tail of Christian soul? If not, tovorisch, then will have to pay up consequences aplenty for toying with serious business of God's glory, not to mention stuffing bitterness in Heaven-beloved heart of Christian being.

Fourth (Clambake) Day

Today we got up at 7 AM to pick seaweed off the rocks at low tide. It was a wet, cold, slippery job, but we all enjoyed it. Then everyone ran back up the lawn to get into swimsuits, and we went for a cold early swim off Elephant Rock. I didn’t—I walked the beach with Mama and looked for seaglass. Another day I would have, but today somehow I didn’t.

We spent all day preparing for the clambake, and at last it began at 5 PM. There were clams first (which are very disgusting because you have to pull them out of their shells and just eat them), then lobsters. This was my first lobster. The way to eat lobster, I learned today, is to screw off its tail and drain the juice out, then screw off its arms the same way, then finally take the claws from the arms. The real eating is in the tail, the claws, and the arms. The body itself is mostly organs. There is also the egg sac, called the “roe,” which David and Casey dared each other to try and both did. I left it alone. Lobster meat is white, sweet, and delicious. However, I commented to David and Casey that I would “never complain about Biology dissection again, because in Biology you don’t have to eat what you dissect.” Of course, it helps that lobsters don’t smell of frumalgahyde (sp?) and don’t have their organs colored (except the liver, which is green and has a tendency to smush all over everything). Are we grossed out yet?

I enjoyed it thoroughly, right down to the lobster bib and the dish of melted butter. At the same time, I was aware of a curious sensation in my tummy. Mama asked how I liked it, and I said “Well, I like it, but my tummy is stuck between deliciousness and foreignness. It can’t decide whether or not to accept it as food, you know. I don’t want to throw up—I just don’t feel like I’m eating anything.”

This afternoon I had my first, and perhaps my only, solitary walk on the beach. It was disappointing on account of all the deep-sea fishers who had stuck their rods up in the sand just where I wanted to walk. Perhaps early tomorrow morning I will have another chance, before we leave for Nana’s house in Cape Cod.

Gathering with all our non-Christian relatives is enjoyable, but also sad. I always come away feeling like the richest person in the world, in spite of the fact that most of my relatives drive nicer cars, live nearer the sea, and have more of what is called “advantages” than we do. We don’t have all of that (we have some of it), but we do have peace, harmony, freedom from little bitternesses and selfishnesses that sour life, and, as always, we enjoy an absolutely scandalous amount of fun. Grandpa says that he’s never seen a happier family.

If I could give away these riches to my dear relatives, I would do it in a heartbeat. I ache for them to experience life as we do. But I can’t give away the things that make our lives so sweet and rich and rare, because they are the fruit of lives dedicated to God. All I can do is marvel that the poorest Christian has the richest inheritance: the whole world, in fact. Marjorie and I were talking about this today. “Do you know,” I said to her, “I think Christians own the world more than anybody else. We are closer to it, and understand it better, because we know Who it comes from and what it is for, and we are like it in that we worship God too.”

Marjorie nodded. She has just recently come from a week of missionary work in Mexico (my sixteen-year-old sister!) and told me of climbing to the top of an old Aztec temple. “There were sun worshippers and hippies who came to smoke stuff up there. They lay stretched out at the top, even though it was a cloudy day.” Marjorie, apparently, felt that she had a deeper experience of the sun than they, because she knows what it really is, and why.

The New England life can give me sun, and sea, and ships, and cool breezes and beautiful gardens, and sweet lush meadows full of dew, and strawberries, and blueberries, and clam chowder and lobsters, and white clothes and tanned skin and alertness of body and mind. It can give me magical driftwood fires and strange songs and stories and dreams. It can give me tragedy and comedy in a single breath. But I only have to look around to see that of itself it cannot give me God. I bring an awareness of Him with me, a Spirit in my pocket (or, more accurately, my soul). It is the Spirit who illuminates and transforms all this into a joyous experience, just as He does the more prosaic (in some ways) home life. Truly, truly, truly, truly, life without God is barren. There is no real beauty, and certainly no wisdom or satisfaction, where He is not.

But ah, with Him! And with those whom one loves! David and Casey are my supreme example, at present. Their young love, young in age but mature in humility and deep in God-given wisdom, which melts so beautifully into the family love that surrounds them, and gives God glory with their every breath, is gorgeous to me—purple-gold, red, airy yet substantial, luxuriant but active and vigorous, intelligent, warm, living: in a word, vibrant. I could look at them all day.

Third Day

Casey and I spent the morning pacing up and down about two miles of beach, while I told her a long and complicated story. We are becoming increasingly close with every passing day of this vacation—which is the greatest blessing this trip has had in store for me so far. I told David, while he was cutting the sleeves from an old t-shirt for me, “I never knew your wife was magical until now.”

“Yes,” he said, pleased. “She is.” I think he’s glad to have such an obvious (to him) fact recognized by me, whom he has long called his “magical sister.” So now there are three of us in the family who are magical. What does “magical” mean? Oh, you know—a little of this and that. We all three have unusual blue eyes, if that matters. We all have very strong imaginations, a deep sense of the significance of things, and a desire to avoid the cliché expression. We are also all strongly empathetic, feeling with and for other people in ways that we don’t even understand. And we all “make things up.” David and Casey understand fairies.

I went outside to sun myself. Mike, David, and Casey joined me. We talked of houses, of dimensions and diagonal views and loggias and whether or not a multi-family estate made as much relational sense as economic sense. Two hours later I came in and found myself the color of a broiled lobster—that is, bright pink all over my limbs and face. Tanned at last!—or rather, I will be, once the fire of the sunburn cools a little.

The men spent part of the morning gathering tables and preparing for tomorrow’s clambake, which is Very Serious Business. Tomorrow we will all get up early to bring seaweed from the beach. Clambakes involve a deep pit, lots of coals, seaweed, corn, potatoes, clams, lobsters, and I don’t know what all else. I am eager to find out! There are a number of relatives coming—twenty-odd. Some of the cousins I haven’t seen since early childhood, but most of them aren’t really cousins anyway, not by blood. On Mom’s side of the family we have only two real cousins, two little girls belonging to my mother’s brother.

We spent the afternoon reading, of course. Nate played a computer game called Rome Total War, and Marjorie watched part of North and South on Daddy’s laptop. I fear I may have missed my opportunity for a sail, since I turned down my chance in favor of talking to Casey. It was worth it, though, and I can always go sailing next year.

A thunderstorm rolled nearby, but I don’t think it means to touch us. Weather is utterly unpredictable near the sea—which is one of the things I love about it. How pleasant to finally find something as moody as my own self! It gives a sort of companionship to life, though of course I know that I shall be less and less driven by my stormy emotions, learning not to love too well and hate too well my loves and hates as I grow up into Christ—whereas the seaside weather will remain, I suppose, eternally in doubt.

Dinner is in a little while, though the cheeses and crackers have already appeared. Lemon hummus is a new thing, but I think I like it very much. Last night I had a glass of Chardonney also, but I don’t like its oakish aftertaste as well as I remembered. David let me try a sip of his red Zinfandel, and I think I will prefer that for tonight. Marjorie and Charity seem to feel that it is their absolute right to have a sip from anything the adults are drinking, which is indeed family practice, so long as the sips are limited to one or two. They would want glassfuls if they weren’t underaged—as it is, both have spent extended time in Italy and know what it is to have one’s own six ounces of wine.

However, children in our family are not permitted to drink underaged, and when we do reach twenty-one we are expected to practice a high degree of self-restraint in all matters alcoholic. Wine is never consumed during the day, for example—it is only permitted with dinner, and then not every night. Also it is not unusual for one or several of us to go off wine completely for an extended period, as a fast, to make sure we still can. I myself fasted through most of June to keep Mom and Dad company on one of their fasts. It is especially important for the girls to be comfortable with restraint, since alcohol will be forbidden during future pregnancies. At all times, “Don’t drink alone” is a family proverb.

These practices are not “rules” exactly, nor should I quite use the language of “permitted” for all of them, but they are serious customs seriously (if quietly) observed.
Despite all these precautions, collecting and comparing wine tastes is a pleasant diversion. I enjoy it reasonably, I hope, and never mind much when it is time to lay the practice aside for awhile. Were I to marry a teetotaler, the loss of wine would be no great sacrifice. Still a red Zinfandel is a pleasant smooth drink, goes well with chicken, and I enjoy it for its ruby color as much as anything else. Looking at a glass of wine, I always think what a great diversity of gifts we have been given for our human enjoyment, and how much trouble God went to, to make each taste and color a separate, living thing. How I love God for that!

Journals -- Second Day

Well! More beach walks, then a trip to tour the Newport Mansions (still posh, but far less overwhelming to me now than they were in my childhood). We took in the most New-England-ish of food places on the way—“Flo’s Crab Shack.” It was indeed a shack, and the food was both fearful and wonderful. We enjoyed the experience wholeheartedly.

Dinner passed, and ice cream passed (at a real ice cream place, outside, with the cow in the back pasture!), and the only recurring themes of the day were Mike’s shutterbug-ness and Marjorie’s ardent interest in playing tricks on her sisters’ beaus. Charity and I, hearing her bloodthirsty plans, are suddenly very thankful that we have no beaus at present for her to practice upon. Motion-detecting siren lights with sprinklers attached is the kindest of her ideas. I told Mom and Dad that if they expected me to court at home, as is proper and traditional, they will have to “control their young”—which made them laugh heartily, because it is a quote from Night at the Museum.

The books we have brought or found here are continuing to be hot commodities. I think we kids spend most of our time either combing the beach, sleeping, or reading. That is, when we aren’t touring or playing games, or eating with the grandparents. I have finished the most popular new trilogy (a very good one, by the way) and relinquished it to my sisters, sister-in-law (Casey), and Nathan. My attention is at present engaged by the book version of North and South, and by a rediscovery of the Anne of Green Gables collection. How long it has been since I read them! Our excellent and worthy grandmother-by-marriage, Grandma Kit, long ago stocked our bunk room in the guest wing of their house with volumes from the Swallows and Amazons series, the entire Chronicles of Narnia set, the Anne books, and others.

Last summer I rediscovered The Silver Chair and The Last Battle. This summer I have rediscovered Anne. I also finished arranging in my mind the details of my ideal nursery, which is a fit brought on by the upcoming birth of my first niece, Nora Caryl (due in November), and I suppose by working in Children’s Ministry.

“My ideal nursery,” I explained to Casey on a long ramble up the beach, “is first of all a real European nursery—that is, all the children of both genders tumble up together in it until they are about twelve. Like the nursery in Peter Pan. It is one big room, and bright, and airy, and has a chair rail going round the walls about here”—I indicated a spot somewhere about my collar bone—“and beneath that it is all parchment-washed so that the children can write on it, with some places whiteboard-washed so that they can draw and it will come off. Then above the chair rail I want to paste all the very best pictures—the nicest illustrations from fairy tales and stories—you know, the ones where the dragons look real and the knights look brave and generous, and the ladies as if they know how to suffer cheerfully, and the fairies are ethereal—I want to copy them out whenever I find them and just cover the walls, so that my children can pick a favorite and fall asleep looking at it every night. I want them to have great imaginings!”

My mother says that I shall make a very creative mother, but she said it because I had just proposed a family car wash day (where everybody brings their cars and washes them all together and has a water fight in the bargain), so I am not sure whether to take that as a compliment or not. I think, however, that I shall at least make a highly fanciful aunt. If adults think of me as a fairy-ish person—and an extraordinary number of them do, to my bewilderment, since I am not tiny and elfish, like Brittainy, nor tall and white and grave-but-playful, like the High Queen—but if they, as grown-ups, think me fairy-ish, what will Nora make of me? Good heavens, she may take me for a fairy altogether, and expect at any moment that I will whisk us both off to the fairy-land of which I am so fondly making up stories!

I wish I could. I can hardly wait until David and Casey have a baby (which will no doubt be some time from now), because they both have water-star eyes and know how to “make things up”—so their first child, which I hope devoutly will be a boy, will perhaps share my enthusiasm for the sea and star-flowers, and will perhaps look up at me out of water-star eyes like his parents’ and laugh with their smiles.

Oh dear, I am becoming hopelessly infatuated with a child not yet born, and more not yet begotten. Profit by my example, young women, and do not rush headlong into the excesses of devoted aunt-hood before it is time to do so. Yet, dear young women, if it were your niece that was going to be born, and named Nora, and open her eyes at last on you, and perhaps smile, or wriggle, or make a baby noise—if a brand-new soul, bound to a body with bits of your blood (or at least of similar DNA, however the genetics of it works) in it, was going to be born, how could you help but be all over rapturous and awed?

Some Account Of My Days in New England...

I will post some of my journals from this trip, beginning with July 4th...

First Day

It was a hilarious, long, weary, wonderful night. At quarter of six we stopped in a tiny New England town for breakfast. Half of us were in pyjama pants, and no one looked really presentable. But Dunkin’ Donuts still sold us coffee and hot chocolate, juice, muffins, bagels, and donuts.

“Early morning hot chocolate,” I explained to Casey, “is a New England tradition.” For me, it counts back to the week I spent living on a boat with Grandpa when I was thirteen. We sailed the ports and drank hot cocoa first thing every cold, raw morning at sea.

Mike took pictures of us all. We were sitting at a row of small two-person tables. “It looks like a dating game,” Marjorie quipped.
“Marjorie Liz!”
“What?”
“Where did you learn that term? David—Casey! She’s only been in your caregroup for one day! What did you do to her?”
David and Casey, who have just become the leaders of a singles caregroup, protested their innocence in vain.
“Sure, sure, we know the truth. You got all those newly-graduated high schoolers in there and said ‘Hi! Welcome to the singles ministry. We want to get you married and out of here as fast as possible, so sit down and talk to the girls.’ That’s what you said, wasn’t it?”
Which led, of course, to David telling a story about how one time in his singles caregroup (back when he was a single) they really did do that (for a lark) and how his college roommate used the time to collect a list of the girls’ ring sizes and preferred proposal spots.
“What did he plan to do; sell the information to prospective suitors?”
“Mhm, something like that.”

We piled back into the car and drove two more hours. I noticed that the scenery had become rockier, more rugged, and that the houses were now all of New England style and construction.

At Grandpa’s there were rounds of hugs, a quick shower, then off to the end of the driveway to see the childrens’ parade. Oh my. I’ve never seen so many antique cars hung with so much bunting! It was a slow, brief, quirky, candy-ful, adorable parade.

Casey’s comment: “New Englanders all look like J-Crew models!”
“J-Crew,” I replied, proudly, “is a New England wannabe.”

Then, naps. Throughout the house and all over the lawn, people were strewn like ninepins. David, Casey, and I piled out onto the broad table-flat outcropping of granite about twenty yards from Grandpa’s deck. I lay down in the clover beside it without a towel, because I wanted to be able to smell the earth. David spent the next three hours sleeping on the rock (which has symbolic importance for him because it is where he went to call Casey every night while on vacation last summer, when they were courting). Casey slept on a towel near me. We all had books, but the sun and breeze put us to sleep almost immediately. When David finally woke up, one whole side of his face was more tanned than the other.

It was a day of intermittent sleeping. We read, slept, ate, slept, gazed at the sea, slept, and slept. I can’t remember the last time I’ve rested so deeply, perhaps because there was such silence, and yet so much air and music. At Grandpa’s house all the windows and doors are left perpetually open to damp, salt breezes. There are a million jays and cardinals making the air glorious with melodies, yet a profound peace reins over the whole scene. It sounds and feels the way a Christian soul should be—utterly at rest, yet full of fresh movement and song-snatches.

Late in the afternoon, Casey and I went to stroll the beach. We wandered slowly up and down. For once, I did not spend my first beach-walk utterly absorbed in the sea. Instead we talked of people, humility, wisdom in caring for others, love for them, and some memories of various relationships and situations. It was a wonderful talk—a gift, since somehow there seem to be few chances for me to really fellowship with my newest sister.

David, Mike, Mama, and Grandpa found us. I squinted up the beach at four approaching figures, and asked Casey “Do those belong to us?”
“Yup.”

Grandpa decided to take the two younger married couples for a sail. Neither of the young wives had been before. Jess and Casey came back a little wetter for wear, but definitely happy. David and Mike, who have been many times, were more nonchalant.

We had a true New England dinner of salmon and peas and salad and bread and baked potatoes, finished off with ice cream treats and cookies. Grandpa and Grandma got their birthday presents, which they enjoyed. A little later, Charity and Marjorie and I asked Daddy to hold Supreme Court for a proposed addition to the Book Laws. We wrangled through the legal ramifications of the fact that Charity now has second claim to two books, and whether Marjorie, having first claim on one and third claim on the other, can succeed to first claim on one when Charity establishes first claim to the other, and whether such an interpretation of Book Law is or is not a sort of “living constitution” distortion.

“Original intent!” David cried. Casey, half-asleep against his shoulder, is making her very first foray into Book Law territory. She is at present sidestepping the issue by letting Nate read her book, even though she has first claim. However, knowing how much those two enjoy teasing each other, I have no doubt that she will at some point decide to invoke her claim.

We finally decided that it is not appropriate for a dual-second-claimer to succeed to dual-first-claim, and stipulated that Charity shall have to choose one or the other. Then we remembered that this law already existed in the unwritten Book Code, and that we had simply forgotten it, since it has now been some time since there were six children and a constant influx of new books to keep the complicated mass of rules fresh in our minds.

It was delightful to hash over old customs, and we enjoyed playing lawyers. Now, wouldn’t you know it, I’m not particularly sleepy. Oh, well, Marjorie will come up soon to the bunk room and want to watch a DVD on my computer.

Tomorrow we go to visit the Newport Mansions, a familiar but still interesting haunt (I think everybody except the new sisters has been at least twice). The following day is for sailing, with a massive thirty-person CLAMBAKE (my first!) on Saturday. Sunday we shall spend with Nana, then Mike and Jess and I will stay on at her house until Thursday, whereupon we shall come home. Friday and Saturday nights will be by me devoted to viewings of As You Like It: a free, outdoor, on-the-lawn-and-bring-your-own-picnic Shakespeare performance back in Maryland. I am adding to my collection—this will be my seventh live Shakespeare experience (not counting school productions of Much Ado About Nothing and Macbeth).

My skin is browner than it was this morning, and smells that nice, warm, slightly exotic smell of suntan lotion. My feet have been scrubbed with salt and seawater. My hair is curly and tangled and blown full of New England aurae. I feel as fresh as if I had been remade out of silver and crystal and blue-green water. Tomorrow I shall be up early to run on the beach. I want to see if I can fly right off the ground—almost walk on water—or at least splash. I’ll run until I have no breath, and then I’ll breathe sea air.

O home, home of at least half my soul, I’ve come back! How I missed you! How beautiful you are!

ONLY in my family...

....could a random decision be made to pack up 10 people (one of them pregnant) and a dog, from three different nuclear families, and drive 9 hours, beginning at or around midnight, "because it would be fun." There's also the avoidance of traffic, but I'm convinced that the main point is "because it would be fun." You know, this kind of fun:

"Halt! What's the password?"
"Um... 'the pumpkin departs at midnight.'"
"Pass, friend. And did you remember the P&P DVD for the road?"

Unbelievable? Believe it. We expect to arrive in paradise (aka Grandpa's house on the shores of Massachusetts) around 9:30 AM, just in time for (I kid you not) the kids' parade that they do in their tiny seaport town on the 4th of July.

We are wildly, gloriously insane! I'm just enjoying it, and enjoying that I didn't think of it, and enjoying that I only have to go with it--not plan it!

All I have to do is load up a suitcase of books. For, in addition to finishing my writing on one last Shakespeare play (June has made me intimately acquainted with Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V, King Lear, and now, oh-so-appropriately, The Tempest), this "working vacation" will give me an opportunity to tie dozens of loose threads together into a couple of major documents (maybe 30 pages each, single-spaced) for Tapestry. Oddly enough, I can't wait. I love tying-together papers. :-)

I've learned to love many things this summer. One by one, I've fallen in love with Una and her lion (Spenser's Faerie Queene), with Riviere (who painted a magnificent picture of Una and her lion), with Donne (all over again for the very first time), with Mr. Venus (minor character in Dickens' Our Mutual Friend), with Fluellen (Welsh captain in Henry V), with Italian epics (Ariosto, Boiardo, and Tasso), with smoothies (Brittainy and I have been experimenting with these all month), with running (we've been going for a run in the woods every other day), and with Don Quixote (yeah, that was a shock). But thought I'm grateful for all the new loves, I can't help being wildly excited about this visit to one of my oldest loves: the sea.

When I write again, I shall be in Massachusetts. When I write again, I shall have become a water-sprite. And every time this happens, it is a little more difficult to return to humanity. Someday, I believe, I shall simply turn naiad and swim away to sing beside the gates of Constantinople.