Joy's Laundromat

I've been completely out of it lately. I've felt like I'm inside of this bubble where I observe everything around me, but in no way feel the interactions I have with other people. I haven't tasted the food that enters my mouth and I've simply generally felt numb.

But today, for the first time in weeks. I felt genuinely happy, and for no real reason. This intense feeling grew inside me as I drove home after an 11 hour shift at work. And just as I realized the word that inexplicably defines such happiness, "Joy", I simultaneously drove by a sign that said "Joy's Laundromat." It was as if it reaffirmed the fact that I was right. I rediscovered my Joy. My happiness came back.

Contributed by Aryn.

The Arc of History

I met up with my friend, Kiel, late one night at Perkins off Highway 169. He was reading in a booth near the back. As I approached, Kiel stood and we embraced. I hadn't seen him in nearly three months.

During our rambling conversation that lasted to nearly two in the morning, Kiel told me something from the book he had been reading before my arrival, a chronicle of America during the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The thing about proponents of nonviolence," Kiel said, "like King, like Gandhi, is that they believe nonviolence requires a kind of religious faith. They would consider it irresponsible to let someone participate in a demonstration or something if that person didn't believe in a higher power, something that guarantees human beings are intrinsically good and this good can be awakened within them. In fact, King says that the bare minimum is a belief that the arc of history, though long, bends toward justice." Kiel stirred his coffee and smiled. "I can do that," he said. "I can believe that. I want to."

Zeus and Buddha

Once, when I was in high school, I took a trip to the Minnesota Institute of Art with my friend, Paul. After wandering around the exhibits for a few hours, we decided to grab a late lunch at the restaurant in the museum.

While Paul and I were eating, an eccentric older woman with dark hair came over to our table and, after making small talk for a while, she reached to touch Paul's long, ferociously curly hair. "You're like an Olympian god," the woman said to Paul, "like Zeus." Then she looked at me. "And you, you look like you have the inner-light of the Buddha." The woman laughed nervously. "Imagine that," she said, mostly to herself. "Zeus and Buddha eating lunch together in an art museum." The woman shook her head in private wonder and walked off.

Corporate America

A friend of mine works as a lab technician at firm that makes various medical devices. I was talking to her last night about her day at work when she laughs suddenly and says, "Let me tell you why I love Corporate America. I love it because it's so funny."

"How's that?" I asked.

"Well, I found out today that later this week, the company is going to shoot some photos of people working in our lab for some brochure they're putting out."

"So, you're going to be a model?"

She laughed. "That's the thing. The company is bringing in professional models to stand in for actual employees in the lab."

"I bet they'll all be wearing designer safety goggles and the most-slimming lab coats available," I said.

"Who knows?" she replied. "At the very least, it's funny."

Jump, Emma, Jump

Our two year old granddaughter is visiting us for the week. It never ceases to amaze me what comes of the mouths of babes.

Emma was entertaining us after supper by hopping around her four foot stuffed dog, working up a sweat. As she was making me dizzy, I wondered when this tiny pogo stick would topple. Thinking I could interrupt her motion I asked, "Emma, are you a bunny rabbit?"

Nonchalantly Emma looked me in the eye, continuing to jump. "No Gamma," she replied. "A kangaroo."

Contributed by Ann.

Good Friends Make One Feel Like a Legend in the Making

I sent my friend Matt a message letting him know I am heading to Duluth to visit him this weekend. Here is his reply:

"Oh I can feel it. The rumble from your tires shakes Duluth's core, streets sprouting veins. Children are crying and dogs are silent on taut chains. As for me, I'm all Chris Columbus/Jackie Chan on the telephone pole outside my house, hand shielding the horizon. Make haste, young lads. There are so many unborn martinis that depend on your arrival."

Last Flowers of the Season

I went to the post office yesterday to mail off a few letters. While I was there I decided to buy some stamps. It has been snowing a lot and so the bright, beautiful flower stamps just felt right. After rummaging through his drawer the Postmaster says, "Well, it looks like you got the last ones," and takes the beautiful stamps out of the glass case and puts them in my hands.


Contributed by Sarah.

Sleep Soundly

I received a postcard the poet Derek J. Rhodes sent me from Gruen, Texas, the other day. On the front was a picture of a dilapidated farm shed that purported to be the oldest dance hall in Texas. On the reverse, D. J. Rhodes wrote the following poem:

Someday we shall sleep soundly
Like God's own babies must.

A Dog Named Shelby

I was eavesdropping in the coffee shop today and I happened to overhear one of the girls behind the counter tell the following story to an older woman who had ordered a medium Americano.

"A girl I used to live with came in here the other day with her fiancé and this beautiful golden retriever pup they'd just bought. My friend holds the puppy up and introduces it, as proud as can be, 'This is our girl, Shelby.' And Mick, the owner of this place, busts up laughing from behind me. 'Honey,' Mick says, 'That's a boy dog.' My friend turns her dog around and, sure enough, the truth of the matter is pointing her straight in the face. I've never seen her turn so red. I haven't heard if they're going to rename it. Something like that just sticks."

Three Hearts

I co-facilitate a writers' group for senior citizens twice a month. During one of our Tuesday meetings, I read the following piece for them to critique.

I heard it said once that every one has three hearts. The first heart is the one kept in the mouth. This is the heart one shares with all of the strange world. The second heart is found in the chest. This is the heart known only to those one loves and trusts. Then, there is the third heart. This heart is a mystery, hidden outside of one's self or deep within, that one spends their life trying to find. I catch glimpses of this third heart of mine in blank pages of paper. I try and write what I see and this third heart grows more elusive.

"It's good, but it's not finished," one of the women said. "I mean, are you ever going to find your third heart?" I

smiled. "I sure hope so."

Traffic Stop

I grabbed a drink with an old friend of mine last weekend. He works as a police officer in a nearby county and we got to talking about the excuses people give when they're pulled over for speeding.

"The best one I've ever heard," he said, "was from this young kid I pulled over doing forty-three in a thirty. I had just been in a bad mood all day so I sauntered up to the driver's side and said, 'Son, I've been waiting for you all day.' The kid smiled a little and replied, 'I'm sorry, Officer. I got here as fast as I could.'" My friend, the young police officer, laughed. "The kid made me laugh, made my day, really, so I let him off with a warning."

At Night in Chang Mai

At night in Chang Mai the streets are flooded with young children selling flowers and palm leaf crickets. They run around to gain a few more cents of income for their impoverished families. As you can imagine, it's quite hard to turn them away. By the end of the night I am always covered in Orchids.

One night a little girl around three years old tottered up to our table and silently lifted her flowers. I smiled at her and asked, "Sabai dee mai?" (How are you?) as Kelly handed her 10 bht. She responded with a huge smile and then proceeded to stick the coin in her mouth as she walked away. She was so excited she forgot to give us the flower.

Contributed by Aryn.

Awakening

I woke up this morning to find the outdoors blanketed in snow. My first reaction was, "Brrrr. Winter is here." Then I saw the beauty of scene and how it covered up the dirt and mess underneath and, like a flash, I was reminded of how Christ's shed blood clothes believers in pure white which covers up all the dirt and mess in our lives. And, thinking of that instead of "Brrrr," a great warmth flowed through me and I felt His immeasurable love.

Contributed by Gwyn.

A Close Encounter of the Best Kind

Three year old Hope was standing on a chair in her little bare feet coloring in her coloring book at the table as this tired old lady walked into the house.

Her dark eyes broke into sparkles as those smiling eyes looked at me while calling, "Gramma Becky! Gramma Becky!" and both she and I sat down together. Looking at me intently, she asked, "Where you been, Gramma Becky?"

"At my house," I replied.

Those wise eyes looked at me with a knowing look on her face. "Me too," she said.

Contributed by Becky.

Home

I used to chat up my math professor in Duluth for an hour every day after class in an attempt to charm my way into passing Calculus.

He was telling me one afternoon how stressed he was over planning an RV trip out to Yellowstone for his family flying in from the Czech Republic the following week. He stopped suddenly and pointed to a white board on his wall filled with mathematical equations. "That," he said, "That is home to me, Eric." He sighed. "I am not much good at anything else. I tell you this because you write and you must know what I mean."

I smiled a little. "Yeah, Dalibour. I guess I do."

Breakfast in Bed

The following is a poem my mother wrote about my niece bringing me breakfast in bed.

Who's Knocking?

Tap, tap, tap at your door.
It's not the Raven squawking "Nevermore!"
Pixie Emma face alight
Offering blueberry braided bread upright.
Illuminating sunshine and morning cheer
Aromatic coffee she offered here.
Beseeching you to awake and visit.
No way could you resist!
Groggily smiling at this tiny vision
Who'd proudly completed her mission-
Breakfast in bed
Nothing more need be said.

Paint-by-Numbers

I ran into an old friend of mine in Elk River, yesterday. She told me the following story.

"So my aunt called like a week ago. She was in Wal-Mart and she says something like: 'I just had to call you and tell you what I did today. I bought a paint-by-numbers kit. I figured my husband is at work all day and my sons are in high school so they're never home, so I bought a paint-by-numbers kit.'

"So I asked my uncle about it this weekend and he laughed. 'Yeah,' he said, 'I come home and I see her doing this paint-by-numbers thing at the kitchen table and I ask her how long she's been doing that and she says, as casual as can be, five hours. Five hours she'd been painting by numbers.' It's funny."

From the Novel

For three years now, I have been working none-too-quietly on a novel called Vanity: A Paperweight or Mea Culpa. Below, I am posting something I wrote today.


"I was in love once," The Monk chuckled. "With a yoga instructor in New York City. She taught at the YMCA."

"How'd that work out with your oath of celibacy?" I asked.

The Monk smiled. "I wasn't entirely celibate then."

"You dog! How was she? Limber, I'll bet."

"It never went that far." The smile dwindled from his face. "I took her out for coffee once. I spent all day begging for spare change on the street corner in order to afford
it. She talked about how badly she wanted to know God."

"Did you show her?" I asked.

"I tried. I wasn't able to talk with God like I can now; She had too much going on back then." The Monk rested his head against the lead-lined concrete wall.

"What did you do then?" I stopped pacing and sat on a crate full of rations.

"Strange how I can remember it so clearly. I asked her if she had a compact and if she did, could I see it? She dug around in her bag--it was a big gym bag, we had just come from the Y--and
handed it to me. I opened it up, held the mirror in front of her face, and said, 'You see that? That is God.' She laughed at me. She said she thought God should have a smaller nose." The Monk sighed. "So my love was an unrequited one."

"The easiest kind," I said.

The Monk laughed. It was the first bitter laugh I had heard come out of him. "I hadn't thought of it that way. It felt like hard work at the time."

Torah Tricks

I met up with a former professor of mine at a joint off Snelling and Larpenteur last week. Over beer, I told him about my vision-quest across America, including my stay in Brownsville, Texas.

"Did I ever tell you about the Rabbi from Brownsville?" Professor S. asked.

"No. I don't think you have."

Professor S. laughed. "Well, I was at this Biblical education conference with a friend of mine, a Baptist minister I used to teach with." I raised an eyebrow. "Don't ask how I know him," he continued, "It's a long story. Anyway, we were talking on the steps of this desolate building on campus, playing hooky from whatever we were supposed to be doing at the conference, and this Rabbi from Brownsville finds us. He was playing hooky, too. He tells us some of his life story. He was this exile from New York, still had the Bronx accent, running what I can only assume is a small synagogue in Brownsville.

"We asked him about the conference and he said, 'Everything they're trying to teach us here is bullshit. If you really want to get the kids to learn Torah, you know what you use? Card tricks.' And he pulls a deck of cards out of his pocket and shows us a couple tricks. It was amazing. This vaudevillian Rabbi in Brownsville explaining, 'You do a couple card tricks, you mix in some Torah here and there, and you got 'em.' "

Professor S. laughed again. "So now you know why I tell so many jokes in class. While you're all laughing--Bam!--I throw in some Torah and you never know what hit you."

Impala

I used to spend my weekends in the summer working at a K.O.A. campground outside St. Cloud, Minnesota. One summer, my friend and the owners' grandson, Dave, decided he was going to fix up an old Chevy Impala stored out in the ball-field. Since I was Dave's steadfast sidekick, I endeavored to help fix the car.

We spent most of our time dismantling the carburetor and trying to get the Impala to go faster than 25 m.p.h. I don't recall ever being successful. Autumn came and Dave and I parted ways until the next summer when we went to work on the car again.

I think a lot about that old Impala and I'm not sure why. It may have something to do with two small dents in the hood. Somehow, I tie that image in with the idea of being dented by people I've known. People I have crashed into who left me altered, but never totaled.

Christmas

I credit Christmas for teaching me to read. My parents used to spell out the presents they were going to get me to my sister across the dinner table. After dinner, I would run to my room, grab a notebook from my backpack, and print the letters I remembered my parents saying. The next day, I would take the notebook to school and show my teacher.

"What does this say?" I would ask her.

"Oh that," she would reply, "That looks like it says 'remote control car.' You're missing a couple letters, though."

I did my best to act surprised when my family opened gifts on Christmas Eve.

Surf

When I was visiting my friend, Kiel, down in Brownsville, Texas, he skipped teaching one day to take me out to South Padre Island.

We sat in the surf, staring out at the ocean. "You know what I love about sitting like this?" I said.

"What's that?" Kiel asked.

"That you can feel the surf eroding the sand beneath you. That if we sit here long enough without moving, we will sink beneath the water."

6,000 Miles

On my way through Colorado on my way back to Minnesota during my vision quest through America, I was stopped by a cattle herd moving down a mountain highway. As I threaded my way at a crawl through the herd, I rolled down my window and called to one of the ranchers on horseback.

"Sorry for the congestion, sir," he said, "but we gotta move 'em."

I laughed. "No worries, cowboy. This is what I drove 6,000 miles to see. This moment, right now."

He smiled, tipped his hat, and cantered on through the herd.

Eavesdropping

I am a notorious eavesdropper. Odds are, if you are within ten yards of me, I am hanging on to your every word.

I was eavesdropping on a woman, her young son, and her friend this morning at a coffee shop. The mother asked her son, "Do you want to tell Janette about how you saw Jesus this morning?"

"Did you see Jesus this morning?" Janette asked the boy. He nodded and blushed.

"He saw the sun this morning," his mother explained, " and he said, 'Mommy, look! It's Jesus. Wave to Jesus, Mommy.' So we get into the car and Nicholas is waving away at the sun and says, 'Come on, Mommy, wave.' So I wave and say, 'See you later, Jesus.' "

The women laughed and little Nicholas giggled.

Anthropologist

This project, Small, Stupid, and Beautiful Things, came out of a game I started playing when I was nineteen.

I used to walk down Snelling Avenue in the Midway late at night, my maroon hoodie pulled up against the dark, and I pretended to be an anthropologist for God.

When I saw someone do something beautiful, I muttered to myself: "Do you see that? That's human beings being beautiful to one another."

If it was exceptionally beautiful, I would ask God, "Are you taking notes?"

I still play this game more often than I should. I try to keep my voice down if there are other people nearby.

Meditation on Honi the Circle-Drawer

[I have written about Honi the Circle-Drawer before.]

In the time of Jesus of Nazareth, there lived in Israel a man called Honi the Circle-Drawer. We know of Honi the Circle-Drawer because the Jewish tradition considered him and men like him to be favored sons of God.

Honi the Circle-Drawer was famous for performing a particular kind of miracle. He would go to villages throughout Israel experiencing drought and he would promise the people rain. Honi the Circle-Drawer would walk to a spot just outside of the village and pray. Then, he would crouch down, put his finger into the dirt, and draw a circle around himself in the parched earth. When he had closed the circle, Honi the Circle-Drawer would stand and face the East, resolved not to step outside the circle until God made it rain. Honi the Circle-Drawer would not move until Heaven blessed the land.

I think this is what any proclamation of love is; clutching the greater half of one's whole, drawing a circle in the dust, and refusing to budge until the heaven above open up and pour.

Honi the Circle-Drawer knew rain is always coming. Those in love know rain is always on the way and are brave enough to stand together until it rains on each and everyone of us.

Blessed Penguins

In medieval Europe, there was a myopic priest who mistook a flock of penguins for a group a Christian pilgrims and blessed them. Later, he realized his mistake and informed his bishop. The churchmen who heard the story of the myopic priest's blessing faced a conundrum. Since they were blessed, did the penguins now have souls like men and women? And if so, could they be saved? Would these penguins have a shot at heaven?

The bishop decided to bring the question to St. Theresa. The story goes that she could not help but smile as the bishop grew more and more upset about the thorny problem of the blessed penguins. The bishop asked St. Theresa what should be done.

"Give them souls," St. Theresa replied. "But only little ones."

"Why would I not do this?"

Everyday I see the small and beautiful things that make people so wonderful and human. I am a nurse assigned to an oncology (cancer) and hospice unit at a hospital.

This is a story about two patients with Leukemia. One is a younger man from the Middle East, devoutly Muslim. He is, understandably, very scared. He is anxious and just stays in his room all day preoccupied with death. I will call him Mr. A. The other is an older women who is Jewish and immigrated from communist Soviet Union in the 70's. She has been receiving chemotherapy since the beginning of June. She is as tough as nails and yet the sweetest woman. I will call her Ms. B.

I encouraged Mr. A and his wife to get out of the room and walk around to keep up his energy, strength, and simply for his sanity. Ms. B, on the other hand, needs no encouragement to walk; you can't keep her in her room because she has so much energy. Later that afternoon Mr. A and his wife were out walking and I saw them meet Ms. B. They talked for a bit and both parties retreated to their rooms.

Later on I heard a knock at a door and it open. I heard a woman yell in a thick eastern European accent, "It is time to get out of bed. Your wife wants you to walk. Let's go!"

I peeked around the corner and saw Ms. B leave Mr. A's room and out came Mr. A and they both went for a walk in their matching IV pumps, gowns, and face masks (to prevent infection).

Later, I asked Ms. B what made her do this. She replied, "I had promised his wife I would watch after him. And he is a man who is loved and who loves, so why would I not do this?" Mr. A was calm and slept for the first time in a week. My hope is Mr. A saw hope for himself and comfort in others around him.

Contributed by Kelly.

Days

Did you know that there are two days in your life you can't do anything about? That's yesterday and tomorrow. You can live only in today! Live, love, laugh, work, and enjoy it!

Contributed by Ann.

Undies

My boyfriend, Kelly, came to visit my new locale in Fountain, MN, and met my Grandpa for the first time. That night we went to my cousin's house for a bonfire and returned around 10:15 to find my 87 year old Grandpa sitting on his walker in the living room, watching the baseball game and eating a single serving cup of ice cream in his underwear.

"You caught me in my undies!" was his response and then he stuck around and chatted for another 10 minutes before retreating to his room...in his undies.

Contributed by Aryn.

Book Brigade

Elk River is looking for about 900 friends of the library to form a "Book Brigade" to symbolically move books from the old library to new quarters about 3 miles away. A "senior citizen" will remove a book from the shelf and pass it along through the human chain until that book reaches the new library where a "youngster" will shelf the book at the new facility. Everyone from 1 to 100 is invited. I hope every family shows up!! What a beautiful community symbol.

Contributed by Ann.

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

---Derek Walcott

Contributed by Sarah.

Honi the Circle-Drawer

Coming into South Dakota, I started ranting into my portable voice recorder about a man named Honi the Circle-Drawer. I first heard of Honi the Circle-Drawer in a class at Hamline University. Honi the Circle-Drawer was a Jewish Charismatic who lived in Israel during the same time as Jesus.

Honi was famous for going to villages experiencing severe drought and promising rain. He would go outside the village and draw a circle in the scorched earth. He would pray to God, step inside the circle, and would stay there until God made it rain.

"What a way to live," the professor said. "Drawing your circles in the sand and daring God to make the next move."

Potty Call

A phone call caught me off guard last week. Our granddaughter wanted to tell me something. "Gamma, potty!" Her mom had finished reading her a "potty book" as part of her night time ritual. At the end of the story, the little girl called her grandma to share the accomplishment.

"Talk Gamma. Potty!" Emma jumped out of her bed running for a phone. Aren't books wonderful? I smile thinking of the tune the "potty" plays when mission is accomplished.

Contributed by Ann.

Hamilton

My friend, Louise, flew into St. Paul from California a couple weeks ago. We were walking to the State Fair and she was lamenting over the fact that she is no longer a coffee barrista, flush with small bills.

"I used to take all my tips and turn them in for ten dollar bills," Louise told me.

"Why tens?" I asked.

"Because Alexander Hamilton is the most attractive man in American currency," Louise replied. "He's just beautiful."

100 Postings!

100 "beautiful experience" swatches intertwined in a cross section of Americana tapestry shared in life's scrapbook! Thanks for adding to the collage--and for showing up!

Contributed by Ann.

Mistake

Loving people is the only mistake I can think of worth making time and time again.

Shooting Stars

I was talking to my cousin, who recently moved to Florida, the other night. We were both outside watching the stars when suddenly she saw a shooting star. Five seconds later I saw a shooting star.

"Wow," she said. "Maybe it's the same star. We are in different time zones".

At the count of three we started to laugh.

Contributed by Sarah.

Gerrymandering

My friend Kent and I were discussing politics at a bar in St. Paul.

"I blame gerrymandering," Kent said.

"Who's that?" I asked and looked at him before collapsing on the table laughing. "Did I just say that?"

"You should have just played that off," he told me. "I thought you were just being really clever."

"I wish I would have," I replied. "In my head I saw the word spelled 'Jerry Manderin' and thought there was some obscure man responsible for voter disenfranchisement everywhere."

Coconuts with Life Jackets

I had coffee with my friend Danielle not too too long ago. She's an art student at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. She explained to me one of her sculptures featured in her senior exhibition coming this Fall.

The sculpture consists of white plaster molds of six coconuts cut in half. These plaster coconuts are floating in a milky-white pool. "But I painted bright orange life-jackets on each of the plaster coconuts," Danielle elaborated.

I smiled. "Why?"

She laughed. "I think I was playing with the idea that real coconuts would float in a pool, but these plaster coconuts wouldn't without life-jackets."

"Right..."

Danielle laughed again. "I don't know, really. I think I just thought it would look neat to have coconuts wearing life-jackets."

"Go with that if someone asks you what the piece means," I suggested. "It's make a lot more sense."

Into Beautiful

A friend of mine came into town last night so I drove out to his parent's house to visit. I pulled up and his little sister was raking the grass.

"Ask her what she's doing, Eric," my friend's girlfriend told me.

"What are you doing, Emily?" I asked the little girl.

Emily stopped, resting the rake twice her height on her shoulder. She smiled. "I'm turning the grass into beautiful," she said.

I smiled. "Doesn't that make you wish you could write poems?" my friend's girlfriend asked me.

I nodded. "Yeah. I know what you mean."

Strip Club

I met the poet Derek J. Rhodes at a strip club in Duluth not too long ago. He waved me over to a seat at his table near the stage.

"This is the last place I expected to see you," he said.

"I'm trying to broaden my horzons," I said.

"That's a long way of saying you were curious."

I shrugged. He caught me.

He gestured with his drink toward a man wearing headphones offering up a fiver for a lap dance. "It's beautiful in a way. People doing what they can to make one another feel less lonely."

"I guess."

The poet Derek J. Rhodes shook his head. "That's the problem with the great E. G. HOVE. All theory; no lust."

I ignored him and stirred my gin and tonic with a straw. It was some time before one of us spoke.

"I didn't mean to sound so uncharitable before," he offered a smile. "Between the two of us, we'll get the job done."

"And what is that?" I asked.

He tossed a dollar landing on the metal rail in front of me. "Convincing human beings they're beautiful no matter what happens."

"That sounds damn near heretical."

"Oh, make no mistake. We'll probably go to hell for it." He grinned. "But at least you'll have someone to buy your drinks."

Cucumbers

My friend, JR, asked me what I will miss most when I die. While I tried to think up a witty and humorous answer, she jumped in. "I'll miss a lot of everyday things," she said. "People too. But right now, I think I'd miss home-grown cucumbers the most."

An Apology

I like to ask people what they would do if they were God. If I was God, I would write an apology on the side of Everest in letters a half-mile high. It would read:

YOU'RE ALL BEAUTIFUL. I'M SORRY YOU FORGET THAT MOST OF THE TIME. MY MISTAKE.

Ralph

I went to the hospital recently to visit my coworker and friend, Ralph. He has worked 22 years at the Scout camp and managed to make it through most of the season without any medical issues. Ralph tells me often that if he dies at camp, he'll be "mad as hell" if anyone tries to resuscitate him.

During my visit, one of his I.V. bags drained empty and the machine pumping the fluid started beeping incessantly. Ralph searched the wall for the call button. "Ladies, oh ladies, they're playing my song again. You know the tune. It goes: 'Beep! Beep! Beep!'" He laughed and promised he would see me again soon.

Most People

I was out with my friends Josh and Rachel two nights ago. We were all tired and conversation had languished for some time until Rachel spoke.

"I'm kind of spacey right now," Rachel smiled. "I keep thinking about how I'd like to be a bird so I could sing."

Josh laughed. "Not so you could fly?"

"No," Rachel replied. "I'd just sing."

"Most people would want to fly," I said.

She shrugged. "I guess that makes me crazy."

A Bipartisan Brand

My friend, K., used to work as an assistant at the State Capitol in St. Paul. Over beers, he told me about a cigarette break he took with one of the state's power-brokers.

"There's this real right-wing state senator, who will remain unnamed, of course," K. smiled.

"Of course," I said.

"Anyway, let's just say she's a leading proponent of the Marriage Amendment, so you know I'm a fan," K. winced. "She comes out on the balcony where all the smokers hang out and she takes out her pack of Parliaments and then gets a good look at me and what I'm smoking and she notices that we're smoking the same brand. She remarks, 'Parliaments? I thought that was the brand of Edina house-wives.'"

K. sipped his beer. "I told her, 'No Senator. You got it all wrong. Parliaments are the brand of college liberals everywhere.'"

"What'd she say to that?" I asked.

"At least we agree on one thing," K. replied. "I think the whole event blew her mind a little bit."

"Tagged"

I'd asked my son, "What would get the younger set involved in the Arts' Alliance?" He recommended establishing a "Graffito Wall". Little did I guess that our shed might become the location! Can't even tell you when, but we've been tagged!

Contributed by Ann.

Benches

There are memorial benches all along Duluth's lakewalk. Some are right off the wooden boardwalk while others are tucked in wooded recesses along the cliffs.

I remember telling Josh during one of our walks after breakfast at Uncle Loui's on a summer Sunday afternoon what sort of memorial bench I would want.

"You see that lone rock out there," I pointed. "I'd want it out there so people would have to swim to it."

"But you can't even swim. Why would you want it there?" Josh asked.

"So people can sit someplace they'd know for sure I'd never been."

Latitudinarian

As I logged onto the internet, my Word for the Day was latitudinarian. It became a point of reflection and soul searching as to whether this adjective applied to me. I think I'll add it to my collection of words I use to describe myself and my life's blueprint. It's a word that rolls off the tongue and peaks interest!

Contributed by Ann.

Movie Dreaming

I like to think about how movies have changed how human beings dream. Slow-motion, cutting between scenes, varying visual angles--these things didn't exist in our minds before cinema, but they show up in my subconscious all the time.

Something to Believe In

I asked my friend, the poet Derek J. Rhodes what, if anything, he believed in. He said:

"I guess I only believe in one thing--people are more important than ideas, without exception. Individuals are more important than beliefs, causes, ideals, concepts, even God." He smiled before the last bit. "If there's a hell, it will be filled with ideas and regrettable circumstances. No, we haven't done anything unforgiveable."

So Write, Writer

My friend, Paul, call to chastise me for neglecting SSB. This is what he said:

"I don't care if you're working fourteen hour days. I don't care if you've 'lost your flow.' Hell, you could mangle your hands in an accident involving a wood chipper and I would be sad, but that's still no excuse. This is what you do. So write, writer."

Fair enough.

Cousins

There's just something fantastic about cousins. I've never been able to pin down exactly what it is I like so much about this particular subset of family, but I think that this picture comes very close to the heart of it.

Contributed by Sarah.

Bubbles

This morning Emma was sitting next to me while I was folding clothes. Calliou was on the TV. As I shook out a towel, Emma shouts, "Bubbles! Bubbles!" In the sunlight you can see dust mites floating--her "bubbles".

Contributed by Denise.

Time Out

Another cute Emma story...She became rather spoiled over vacation with mom/dad going to bed with her in the tent when we were camping. So we are back to sitting in the chair until she falls asleep. Saturday night, I was sitting there reading a book. Meanwhile Emma put Elmo in time out in the crib. She sat him on the pillow, and said, "No, NO, NO, NO,", turned him over and waited a few seconds then turned him back and continued the scolding. I tried so hard not to laugh myself silly. Poor thing, she has had it hard the last few weeks. It seems like everything she wants to do is sometimes questionable behaviour.

Contributed by Denise.

Bell-Jar

My friend, Jenna, and I went to a coffee shop Monday night. She sat by herself while I wrote. An hour into reading Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, Jenna started laughing out loud for a solid minute. It made me smile.

Bad Habit

I have a bad habit of stashing away beautiful stories. I think that's why I started this site.

I know why I keep them locked away. It's like Moonlight Sonata. I need to have one last small, stupid, and beautiful anecdote in reserve when all the chips are down.

July 1, 1967

Forty years ago we almost didn't have a wedding. Two weeks before our selected date, the minister had resigned unexpectedly and left town. Panic ruled! Invitations had been sent out, out of town guests expected, and no one to marry us. This was small town USA. The Methodist Church did find someone to officiate for the afternoon.

Thankfully the replacement minister ran us through rehearsal the night before. After that we gathered at Denny's folks for lunch and gift opening.

I had made my gown of white Peau de Soie which had a rounded neckline, fitted bodice, and detachable train. The gown had full length sleeves with pearl buttons. Course then I weighed 95 pounds! My bridal bouquet was white stephenotis and pink roses along with ivy. My sister kept a cutting which grew and grew. (My green thumb wasn't as good as hers.) My daughter used cuttings from that plant as her reception arrangements for her wedding 10 years ago.

Nancy, maid of honor, wore a floor length gown of hot pink, a color she hated. Doris & Pat wore light pink.

The day was hot and humid which did nothing for our coiffed hairdos. At the farm, indoor plumbing had just been installed so preparations were easier. Silly me, I even let my sister help with my packing. She'd done a number on my suitcase--ten years later rice was still falling out!

As the processional began, bridesmaids sedately walked down the aisle. I almost fainted due to low blood sugar, and a bun was foisted upon me. Nancy, my maid of honor, stopped at the hallway and refused to enter. My dad gave her that steely look and pushed her out of the doorway and down the aisle. As we knelt at the alter, Denny's knees were knocking so bad due to nerves that the tacks holding the runner popped out.

Our honeymoon was along the North Shore but we were unprepared for the frost and cold weather. We had to use our Triple A card to scrape off the windshields.

We've been blessed with a terrific family, friends, tons of memories, and happiness.

Contributed by Ann

Boat Driving

Another funny random camp moment came after one of my first speed boat rides. We unloaded the boat at the dock and as we walked to shore, one of the women who has schizophrenia turned to me and said, "You're a really good boat driver we were going 35 miles per hour that's about half as fast as a cheetah goes I have to go to my cabin bye!" It was all uttered in one deep breath.

Contributed by Aryn.

Real Writing

"...and the beautiful thing about real writing is that I can tell you everything today and chalk it all up as fiction tomorrow."

Socialist

I listened to a college couple arguing politics late one night in Perkins.

"You won't believe all these things once you start making lots of money," he said.

"Well, I guess it's obvious I'd better never make any. For the good of my soul," she replied. I'm sure it was the first time I heard someone bring their soul into an argument in some time.

I Love a Parade!

Summer and it's time for parades! You can appreciate a parade through the fresh eyes of a child. The clapping and excited tapping of her dancing happy feet when the color guard passes. She steps in cadence as the Virginia band snappily marches by. The questioning look upon her face as tootsie rolls candies rain down and land close to her feet. The lifted eyebrow seeking permission before she claims them and gleefully dumps them in her sand bucket. She cheerfully shares her bootie with fellow parade goers including the Animal Canine Shelter unit and gets a sloppy lick for her generosity. Mo-moes (Shriner's Motorcycles) roll by in formation. Balloons escape and float high in the sky where helicopters are providing aerial tours. The Clown Band prompts chaos behind the motorized porti toilet spewing tissue as it drunkenly spins and moves along the route. Fire engines, royalty from local cities, car clubs, and floats make a parade day a beautiful thing--along with 10 pounds of candy!

Contributed by Ann

Translation

[My friend, Aryn, works at a summer camp for people with special needs. She sent me the following story.]

One of my favorite campers holds that position because of the sheer dichotomous nature of his personality. His cerebral palsy affects his speech making him fairly hard to understand, but after several years of working with him I am fairly accustomed to it.

He is one of the most polite young men I know, always saying "Thank you," "I'm sorry," and "Please" emphatically. However, if you listen carefully, in the very next sentence he will utter "She's a f-----g b---h" or "That scared the piss out of me."

This puts me in an awkward position as to whether or not to interpret his phrases verbatim when other staff ask for translations.

Contributed by Aryn.

Journey's End

A quote that struck me with truth:

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be."

--Douglas Adams-English humorist and science fiction novelist (1952-2001)

Contributed by Ann.

Movie Moment

As I was driving yesterday I had a movie moment. That’s what I’ve dubbed those moments in life when the universe is all perfectly in sync, those moments that are just too perfect and seem like they should be in a movie rather than real life. As I drove on listening to The Shins, the leaves fell in shimmering gold light, the trees swayed, and the birds flew off one by one all in perfect rhythm to the music. Magic.

Contributed by Sarah.

Sailor's Hat

Tacked onto a check from my daughter was the teaser that her daughter, our granddaughter, had worn her sailor hat all day at day-care. That's a feat of magnitude for a 20 month old gal. Visions of this "sailor hat" jauntily perched on her head as she whipped around all day tickled my funny bone. Course grandma had to send a hurried email requesting the story behind the sailor hat.

Being a free thinking spirit, she'd chosen to wear her Ariel outfit: blue jean capri's, t-shirt, and red sailor jacket with Little Mermaid embellishments on the lapels. She kept signing "HAT" so Mom went and found the sailor hat that goes with it tucked away from Mother's Day. Thinking that it wouldn't last very long, Mom took her to day care proudly attired. Wouldn't you know it, she wore it all day! :) She did take off the jacket though.

The next morning she was signing "BOAT". Uh-oh, maybe Dad's boat will have to make an impromptu visit to day care!

Contributed by Ann.

Cemetery Grass

My friend, Josh, and I were out in Boston not too long ago visiting our friend, Rachel. While she went in to work on Friday, Josh and I walked the Freedom Trail, a three-mile red-bricked path through historic Boston starting in Boston Commons and ending on Bunker Hill.


Along the way, we stopped off at the historic Granary Cemetery, the second oldest in the city. Groundskeepers were hard at work mowing the grass. As we waited for a group of school children to clear out from around Paul Revere's gravestone, I inhaled and smiled.


"Few things make me feel more alive than the smell of fresh-cut cemetery grass," I said.

The Office

The office to many means a TV series or a place of work. To me, it's an evasive term tossed as a refrain as my son heads out the door heading for Dunn Brothers to work or study.

It's a phrase his uncle coined for a place the locals gather at a restaurant in the morning to discuss the state of world affairs, weather, crops, and neighborhood gossip. It's a spot where conversation flows while gallons of coffee are sipped. Sarcastic quips volley between those gathered. Deals are struck. Bloodlines are verified. Bartering is done for services needed. The exchanges are heated and humorous with a twist of one-up-manship. It's the hot spot to organize a work crew, arrange a hasta outing, recruit membership for the local historical society, check on neighbors needing a helping hand, the cheapest gas prices, and who's in town visiting relatives. It's an informal site where much is accomplished drawing a caring community together informally to reflect on how the world turns.

I can hardly wait for my next "office" visit in my childhood home of Chosen Valley. A sloppy grin floods my face as I reminisce about the outlandish claims sprouted by the challenging group. A mental note to myself: I'll need to sharpen my wits to be ready for the next onslaught of city slicker barbs!

Contributed by Ann.

Walking the Bear

I was out walking the bear Saturday night. 'Walking the bear' is what I call those long, aimless walks I take when restless. The phrase comes from something a good friend of mine said to me:

"It's like I have this bear inside me. He can stay put for a while, hibernate for a while. But sooner or later, life thaws and I gotta move again. I know you get what I mean, Hove."

While out walking the bear, I spotted something on the sidewalk. A child had scrawled LEAVE in big, block letters. I told my friend, Josh, about it at the bar later.

"Why would a kid write 'leave' on the sidewalk?"

I smiled. "I don't know. Maybe to tell me what to do next."

Weeds

As I mowed my lawn yesterday I couldn’t help but think how beautiful the dandelions were. Hundreds of brilliantly bright yellow flowers set against the backdrop of perfectly green grass.

Contributed by Sarah.

On Apathy

I read the following text at a fund-raiser for Ebenezer Basic School in Jamaica.

You see, I have been abroad before. A month in Egypt. A January back-packing through Europe. But I was always a tourist. I may have gone to learn and to experience, but in Jamaica, I had my first real chance to contribute.

I fear succumbing to apathy, that insidious whisper within, saying: "Don't worry about that, someone else will take care of it" or "You'll do something when you're older and financially stable."

I fear apathy because every time I defer to that whisper, I lose some of my compassion. I lose some of my humanity. The loss of those two--however gradual--is something I will not bear.

Apathy's insidious whisper can be outshouted by action. Though action is most effective when deliberate and articulate, it does not necessarily start that way. In my experience, the choice to finally do something is awkward and clanging and maybe even bumbling. But it is noisy and, in the beginning, that is enough.

Our team helped make some noise in Bamboo. Thank you for helping to make more.

American Dream II

I learned the American Dream from a billboard above a hardware store on Randolph and Fairview.

It read:

No lawn to mow,
gutters to clean
or leaves to rake.
AH...FREE TIME!

What did that one guy say? Something about the kingdom of God being here already?

By Flashlight

I like to read before I fall asleep. A month ago or so, my lamp broke and I have not replaced it. Because I do not want to get out of bed and walk over to the light switch when it's time to sleep, I read by flashlight, like a kid who is trying to stay up past his bedtime.

A few nights ago I was reading Hocus Pocus by Vonnegut; one of his best in my opinion. I thought I noticed the light dimming a bit as I had about twenty pages left. By the time I had ten left it was clear the batteries were dying. As if the light were holding on until I was done, just as I finished the last sentence everything faded to black.

Contributed by Nick.

That Girl in the Library

I was at the library today, planning a bridal shower with a friend, when an old man interrupted our conversation. He said, "Excuse me, but I've been listening to you for quite some time now, and it sounds like you were talking about the universe. It sounded interesting. But, I couldn't hear everything that you were saying."

I smiled and said, "Oh no sir. Nothing as exciting as the universe. Just a wedding shower."

Thinking we were done, I began to turn away, and heard him say, "Now, I've been wondering about that. It seems to me that there is only one reason we are in weddings -- It is so we know we have friends."

I shifted in my chair so I could square off with him and I looked in his eyes as he talked. He was lonely. From his sunken eyes to his stutter, he was all alone. He mused about the money we spend to prove we have friends. That maybe the bride should pay for everything. Better yet, we should all come as we are to show acknowledgment. But, we should wait to celebrate until a couple reaches 20 years. He rambled on topic for a bit before saying he could be wrong and asked me if I agreed. I said if it were me, I would have a celebration of the joining of two families and focus on the marriage, not the wedding.

He got an eerie all-knowing look in his smile and proceeded to tell me about my life. How someday soon I'll fall in love and have an outlandish wedding. How on holidays I'll stop by my side of the family quickly on the way to my in-laws. Because the in-laws will be the 'correct' side of the family. How my parents will ask why I don't come over and I'll be too nice to tell them the truth--that though they raised me, they're a bunch of jerks. He said that all that won't be important though, because I don't know the answer to the most important thing in life. I don't know where I'm going when I leave... The library had to close and flustered, he stood, adjusted his cap and walked out.

And, I didn't bother to tell him that in telling me who I am, he forgot to ask me. I didn't tell him that when he put me into a hole, he put me in the wrong hole. But I don't think that was really important today. Because, as he goes home to an empty house, and has his ritual nightcap, I like to think that he'll go to bed a little less lonely. Because he knows a sweet, naive girl from the library.

Contributed by Catie.

Coincidence

Lately I've been noticing coincidences. I don't attach any particular meaning to them, but I do take notice nonetheless. The other day I was biking to Rainbow Foods to get a few things to cook dinner with. Leaving my house, I had to stop and give the right of way to a girl an a bike going the same way. So I followed after she passed and I caught up at the red light on University Ave. The light turned green, she went on, and a half block later I turned into the parking lot of Rainbow. Once there I realized I had forgotten my wallet, so I went back home, retrieved it, and returned.

After I paid for my groceries, I left and returned home the same way I had came with my plastic Rainbow Foods bag in hand. Once again I was stopped by the same red light on University Ave. As I waited for the light, another biker came up and stopped to my left. I looked over and noticed it was the same girl that had been next to me at the light on the way there. I said 'hey', and she said the same. We both had the smile on our face of someone who just noticed something odd. The light turned green and she rode away without another word, carrying a plastic bag from Cub Foods.

Contributed by Nick.

Planting Carrots

My two-year-old was helping me plant the garden today. This is the third time we've been in the garden so far this year, so he's starting to get the hang of things. As I was busy getting ready to plant a row of onions I happened to look up and caught him doing something beautiful.

He had an unopened packet of carrot seeds (with the picture of carrots on the front) in his little hands and was planting it in its entirety in a big mound of dirt. He gently placed the packet of seeds and then carefully placed dirt over top of them. He then tapped the top of the dirt just like I'd shown him yesterday and smiled at what a fine job he had done.

Maybe by next year he'll understand that the seeds should come out of their package before you plant them, but I'm not sure it'll make me any happier than I was today watching him plant carrots in his own beautifully innocent way.

Contributed by Sarah.

American Dream

I went to a birthday party for my friend's father on Saturday. He turned 50.

My friend, Josh, and I stepped out of the bar to get some air. We sat in the grass on the highest hill in Maple Grove.

"Where are we?" Josh asked.

I swept my hand over the suburban houselights stretching off into the distance and the vacant development lot immediately below. "My friend, we are smack dab in the middle of the American Dream," I said. "How does it feel?"

Josh squinted and held his thumb and finger out in front of his face like he was about to pluck one of those houselights from the horizon. "Small," he replied. "It feels like it should be bigger."

West Virginian Headstone

Sarah sent along this photo of a headstone from a cemetery in West Virginia. The epitaph reads:

"Remember friends as you pass by;
That all mankind is born to die;
As I am now so you must be,
Prepare for death and follow me"

Contributed by Sarah.

Epitaph

I've been thinking about epitaphs some lately. Morbid, I know, but it has to do with a coffee table book I'm playing at writing.

Here is the epitaph I would like to earn:

He had a soul so big, the whole world couldn't hold him.

I think that would be nice--feeling like the world just could not physically contain you any longer.

Texan on the Train

I found this in a journal I kept the January I studied in Egypt.

A Texan on the train talks to Samiha about how he and his wife have saved for ten years to come to Egypt. Antiquity draws everyone. From the Japanese tourists forming a conga line in the club car to the Texan making the same three jokes about his life to each person he meets. I hope I have more jokes than that.

The Band Box

I kept the receipt to a tiny burger joint in Minneapolis that my friend, Amanda, introduced me to. It reads:

Band Box Diner

Grease

For
Peace

GRUB $6.60
GRUB $8.45
DRINKS $1.25
DRINKS $2.00
TAX 1 $1.83

PAY UP $20.16

Under Eaves

It rained hard in Duluth on Sunday afternoon. My friend, Josh, and I huddled together under the overhang of a building on Superior Street. Still in our suit coats from Josh's concert and the subsequent after-parties the night before, we did our best to stay dry as water flooded the street.

"I keep thinking about that samurai proverb about running through the rainstorm," Josh said.

I laughed. "So do I."

"I'd make a run for it, but I don't want to get these shoes wet."

"I hear you." I showed him the jacket I had turned inside out. "This jacket is suede."

I pointed to a small geyser gushing from a manhole cover. A minute passed.

"Well," Josh said, "if I had to be stuck under eaves in a rainstorm with somebody, I'm glad it's you."

Stranger Lefty

I realized today that I love making left turns. When there is someone in the opposing lane of traffic who is also turning left, an entire conversation takes place.

First, you make eye contact with this complete stranger, looking for the sign in their eyes that they are indeed making a left turn as well and not just playing with you or being annoyingly forgetful. Then, you realize they are doing the same thing to you. Finally, in less than 30 seconds, you make a nonverbal agreement with Stranger Lefty, and rely on each other to proceed and turn your respective lefts safely.

Contributed by Aryn.

My Niece's Grace

Before dinner on Easter, my niece reached from her high chair to her mother and father, sitting on either side of her, and grabbed on to their fingers. She looked around the table waiting for my parents, aunt, and me to join hands, too. She expected us to say Grace.

"Come Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let this food to us be blessed. Amen."

Emma clapped when we finished.

Twenty minutes into the meal, Emma reached for her parents' hands again. They looked surprised. "But Emma," my sister said, "we already said Grace."

Emma shrieked in response so we joined hands to say Grace again.

"Good thing it's not a long Grace," my father said.

"She's just a grateful little girl," I said.

Later, my sister refilled my niece's plate with some more mashed potatoes and Emma reached out to pray.

My mom laughed. "You like making all these adults do what you want, don't you, Emma?"

"Maybe she just knows Thessalonians," I said. "Pray without ceasing."

We said Grace a third and final time.

29 June, 2005

A jumbled entry from Black Notebook: Volume 13:

Rendezvous with Paul at Blackwoods Bar in Otsego. Coronas, whiskey-sevens, appetizers, and trying to convince the waitress that Paul and I are long-lost brothers.

Talked love. Talked faith.

Built ourselves up into elaborate metaphors. Oaks complaining about the saplings up in the canopy where they can't hear.

Love, faith, greatness.

Told Paul what the book is about. "Sooner or later, everybody's world blows up," he said.

Reluctantly hit the road. Paul climbed up on the concrete base of a lamp post in the parking lot, screaming into the night as I drove away.

Vonnegut

"A purpose in human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved."

--Kurt Vonnegut
1922-2007

The Woodland Hostel

In Duluth, I lived in a house on Woodland Avenue, across the street from the University. I loved that house and the people in it a great deal. We called it the Woodland Hostel.

It had a cement stoop out front perfect for drinking beers in the summer and watching the cars go by. There was a door out onto a flat spot of the roof where my house mates and I could stand just right to catch glimpses of Lake Superior down the hill. There was a floral printed couch in the living room. Guests would sleep there for days, weeks, or on and off for months, saying that couch gave the best night's sleep they had ever had.

One night, we put up a dozen or so musicians who had been kicked out of their hotel. They were in town for a music festival at the NorShor Theater (It's a strip club now.). They drank us out of gin and ate us out of Kraft Easy Mac, ice cream, and hot dogs, but it was worth it.

I fell asleep around four in the morning to two of them belting out "What a Wonderful World" in their deepest Louis Armstrong voices in our backyard with the song reverberating off the neighbor's brick walls and up to my bedroom window.

1 June, 2005

I was flipping through some old notebooks and I found a story my friend, Ryan, and his sister told over beers at Sir Benedict's Tavern about the time their parents tricked them into protesting the expansion of Interstate 35 as children.

Ryan:

"So, however many years ago, there were all these protests about the new freeway--there didn't always use to be a freeway, you know--

Ryan's sister:

"This was before the whole underground plan. They wanted to run it right through down town."

Ryan:

"Right. So our parents, they tell us we're going to have a picnic and we end up in the freeway median in Two Harbors and the paper takes a picture of us with the whole picnic in the freeway median with the caption: 'Is this how you want your children to grow up?' or something."

Ryan's sister:

"It was a dead give away when there was actually no food in the basket."

Say Say Oh Playmate

I spent time at the Science Museum today and my heart was happy when I stopped focusing on the exhibit around me and watched the people instead. Playing on the ground near me, were three people with hand puppets: two little girls of different races and an adult who appeared to be their nanny. They each were wearing a doll of a different race on their hands.

One doll was named Molly and Molly wanted to join as the others were playing the sing-song hand-clap game of 'Say Say Oh Playmate.' And as these little voices sang "... and we'll be jolly friends, forever more...," I was happy. Because these little girls will grow up in a future where they are not scared of racial differences. And maybe they didn't learn anything new from the stats and facts of the RACE exhibit, but they learned that a Korean, Guatemalan, and Kenyan can all be jolly friends.

Contributed by Catie.

Someday I'll say I love you with just a stutter

See, scat did us right
wild and unintelligible
A man 'come a trumpet
just sounds better
So, if God speaks,
it's in tongues Pentecostal
'Cause a man's made to babble

Ed and Martha

Over spring break, I lead a dozen Hamline student on a Habitat for Humanity trip to Brunswick, Georgia. Over the course of four days, we put up trusses, three walls, and hurricane straps on a house for Ms. Alberta Lockwood. Ms. Alberta was a spry, elderly woman who stopped by the construction site daily to give us all a hug.

In the evening, Mr. Hicks, the executive director of Glynn County HFH, would take us to the homes of residents on the islands across the causeway for dinner. Our hosts the first evening were Ed and Martha.

During dinner, I sat at a card table in the front sitting room with Martha and the wife of the island's Presbyterian minister. The minister's wife kept prodding Martha to talk about herself. Modestly, Martha talked about being a five-time cancer survivor. She talked about how she met Ed. "I would joke that he was from wrong side of the tracks and he would say, 'That may be true, but I run around with the guys who own the trains.'" Martha talked about how her husband had started off selling peanuts at baseball games and how in college he played with members of the Kingston Trio.

With some more encouragement from the minister's wife, Martha spoke about her work at a maximum security women's prison in Georgia. A few years back, Martha convinced the governor to all Martha and her friends to throw a Christmas party for the inmates. Martha raises $15,000 every summer for the event and uses the money to pay for food, extra guards, and at least 1,000 bags each containing a Bible, comb, brushes, soap, lotion, and anything else Martha can think of.

The entertainment is cheap, Martha said, because she just makes Ed play.

Martha said she could relate to the women in the prison. She told me about her struggles with drug and alcohol abuse and reflected, "I could just have easily ended up in there with them."

Later on, Ed played for all of us in the living room on his four-string guitar. "They don't make these anymore," he said. We sang along to Johnny Cash and the hymns I hummed though I had forgotten the words.

True Currency

"The only true currency in this bankrupt world...is what you share with someone else when you're uncool."

Lester Bangs, Almost Famous

Contributed by Ann.

Money Trees

Does money grow on trees? Have you ever wished you'd find that forest? Sometimes old adages become true! Just believe!

Contributed by Ann.

Emma's Little Lambs

Petite Emma with saucer blue eyes and bristling with curiosity ventured into Uncle Bud's sheep pen Saturday to make the acquaintance of nine newborn lambs. Her neon pink galoshes were two sizes too big and kept tripping her up as she trod pigeon-toed through the straw trying to catch up with the frisky lambs. The ewes parted to let her pass through. She diligently smiled that 100 watt grin and waved to summon the ewes closer then patted their noses greeting them with her boisterous, "Hi!" They'd scatter but the quads found their momma and began nursing. Emma moved in to supervise and tweak their wagging tails. Every once in awhile the barn kitties lured Emma back to the slatted sides of the pen jabbering and pointing at the antics as the kitties scrambled for food. She gave all creatures big and small her parade wave as she was hoisted up on mom's shoulders for her trek back to the house. What a beautiful sight!

Contributed by Ann.

Aiden

A few summers ago at camp I discovered a rare little boy. Though he came to our deaf and hard of hearing session, his disabilities went beyond physical limitations. Aiden was severely neglected for the first ten years of his life, leaving him with no form of communication beyond clicks and gestures.

One day, Aiden ran half a mile to the water front, grabbed a fishing pole, and waved it in the air dramatically. I got the impression that he wanted to go fishing. He and I must have waited on that dock for nearly an hour until, finally, the only living fish in Lake George bit our hook.

Elated, Aiden pulled back on the pole and sent the fish flying into the air. I finally got a hold of the fish and pulled the hook from its mouth. I watched as the boy’s expression changed from excitement to regret. He felt bad for hurting the fish. I held the little sunny up to his face and Aiden grabbed my hands, gave the fish a soft kiss, and then slowly helped me put it back into the water.

That little boy who had never known affection felt driven to show compassion to a fish.

Contributed by Aryn.

Getting Old

On the rare Tuesday afternoons when I find myself motivated enough to immerse my body in chlorine for half an hour of breath control and shoulder pain, I find three inspiring women. All in their early to mid 70’s, these ladies pull on their pink floral bathing suits and 1980’s swim caps to invigorate their sagging bodies every week, twice a week. They flirt with the lifeguard. Each take a separate lane because they can’t quite swim straight enough to share one, and then keep a fairly even pace in the water.

I find one of these women of particular interest, primarily because she is more toned than Madonna (even with her progressed scoliosis), but also because I over hear her in the locker room talking about learning French, her upcoming vacation to Europe, her qualms with the public school system, and “why the hell’d they change daylight savings time.” I hope I’m like that when I get old.

Contributed by Aryn.

February 9, 1952

I'm working on some photo archiving for a family & in with their old pictures was this article printed in the paper about their grandparent's wedding. The part below made my mind wander to that beautiful day.

Excerpts from a well-preserved but slightly tattered newspaper clipping from Saturday, February 9th, 1952:

"A suit of brown gabardine was worn by Miss Lyla K., Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Oscar K., when she became the bride of Minor H., son of Lars H. of the Rushford vicinity and the late Mrs. H., in a double-ring ceremony Jan. 26 at the Lutheran Parsonage. A white Bible on which was placed a lavender orchid showered with white ribbon, was carried by the bride. She wore a corsage of orchids. For her maid of honor the bride chose her sister, Miss Orpha K. who attended her in a black crepe dress. She wore a corsage of red-tinted gardenias and red tea roses."

Contributed by Sarah.

Epiphanies For Breakfast

I’ve spent a good portion of my life in diners. Diners that fill up before noon and don’t empty until eight. Diners with bottomless cups of burnt coffee and waitresses who roll their eyes when I ask for more creamers. Diners with wait staff who know me, not by name, but by the stories I tell more so than by the tips I leave.

On Sundays, I walk down to the Sinclair Broiler. Sometimes I go in fellowship with housemates or friends visiting from out of town. Often, I go alone. I go to carve some sacred space out of my week, chiseling away with a coffee spoon clanging against ceramic walls.

In this sacred space, I mull over my week, my life, and the stress coming Monday. I think about heartbreak and order French toast. I think about loss and change my side order from bacon to sausage. I miss people and make a show of nearly finishing my cup so someone will rush over to fill it. I put my life together—only some of it, never all of it—into stories that help me make sense of who I am.

I think about the people I belong to. I know that’s uncomfortable language, but rugged individualism leaves me empty. Without God, only people and ideas remain to sweep me up. I happily choose the warmer of the two. I would rather belong to particular people than to causes, movements, cities, and nations bound to forget me.

I belong to friends-like-brothers in St. Cloud, Duluth, Virginia, and Texas. I belong to parents living in the suburban flatlands. I belong to a little girl, my niece, who cannot stand without holding my hand. I belong to the waitress checking on me one more time before she ducks out back for a smoke.

While she’s gone I scribble today’s diner sermon on a napkin hiding a wad of chewed gum folded over in its corner. I write about the only two things I’m learning that seem to make a damned bit of difference anyway: humor and love. Humor to sustain me when the living gets lonely. Love to push me when the living gets complacent.

Sustain me to what end; push me to what end, I’m not sure. All I know is that a bill written in Sanskrit has arrived. It’s time to toss my crumpled napkin on the dirty plate and leave an even ten under the coffee cup. I’ve had my fill of epiphanies for breakfast.

Almost to Texas

My great friend Paul moved to Texas last month. He called an hour out from the border and left the following message on my voicemail.

“I am piercing into this heart of darkness. Traversing closer and closer to the borderline that will throw me into the state that still holds every right to withdraw from the union if she and all her constituents so wish.

"With every heartbeat and every breath I draw closer to this behemoth of a land mass that by all accounts is perhaps the last uncharted territory in this mapped out terra forma that we call home. Every second, every grain of pavement that I cross and my tires wear their rubber over, I draw nearer to this misunderstood, misinformed, mis-communicated wasteland of oil and rich people. Strippers that marry incredibly rich, old men. Hold on. I think you’re calling. Let me answer it. If you’re not, I love you, give me a call back.”

A World From Falling

"The longer I worked the more certain I felt that, as improbable as it might seem, there were moments when an individual conscience was all that could keep a world from falling."

--Arthur Miller

Bind Us Together

Over January, I took a course called "Development Ethics in Jamaica." For two weeks, our class worked with local volunteers and workmen on expanding a basic school in the rural village of Bamboo, Jamaica.

On our final day at the Ebenezer Basic School in Bamboo, Jamaica, our work team arrived to find that the children and their teachers had waited for us to start their morning devotions in the adjoining church. The children sang—90 three, four, and five year-olds in school uniforms—and we sang back.


Later, after lunch, the school and the church threw a farewell ceremony for us. Near the end, Mrs. Carol White, the principal teacher at the school, called us up to the front of the church to present each of us with a small gift. Lined up on both sides of her were Mrs. White’s fellow teachers and the two churchwomen who had taken care of us for two weeks, Mrs. Williams and Auntie Lena. Each woman leaned over the communion railing to hug me, and the others in our team, tightly in turn.

Tourists do not get tearful hugs.


We circled up to sing spirituals. Mrs. Williams held my left hand and Auntie Lena gripped my right. We swung our hands up into the air each time we sang, “Bind us together, Lord. Bind us together, Lord, with bonds that cannot be broken.”

Tourists are not bound together with the people of the place they came to see.

Five Signs

Standing in the snowdrift
with five flashing construction signs,
I puffed my cigarette in the dark
when I thought it was my turn.

Ruthie

Then I said sort of, "Wake me when it thunders, Ruthie. Please. It's okay. I mean, wake me when it thunders."

That made her cry harder. Funny kid. But she wakes me now, that's what I mean. It's okay with me. I mean it's okay with me. I don't care if it thunders every night.

--J. D. Salinger, "Both Parties Concerned"

"The Last Thing I Want to Be is Forgettable"

I have to admit, when I first walked in the X last Monday, I was a little leery. For some reason, I knew right away that we were going to get in a circle and hold hands. Not that I'm opposed to that sort of thing, or anything, I just need a little time to warm up. It's not always easy for me to embrace new things. In fact, that is one of the things that I like about theatre: the perpetual challenge, the ongoing dare, the prodding, the danger, the cliff. In a way, I like that it is not easy . . . And then, my fears were of course realized, and I was holding hands with people I didn't know and there was this profoundly sensitive man asking us to reveal to the group something that really mattered to us. My heart started to pound. What was I going to say? Should I make something up? No, I'm not a very good liar (and I call myself an actor!). Should I say something that kind of matters to me, perhaps I could sort of say something general, like the election, and just sort of fudge my answer a bit so that everybody just nods in agreement (like, say something that everybody is supposed to care about) and then my turn will be over, and yes, I won't stand out, but this time that would be a good thing, I could blend in, and be forgettable.

No. That's not me. The last thing I want to be is forgettable.

So, right there I decided. I am going to try this. I'll say what's really on my mind. Fuck it. These people will know, but there's no freedom unless you're vulnerable first. So, I did it. Then I turned a corner. I realized, that sharing something intimate or important to me or something that really matters to me, doesn't necessarily have to be anything sexual, or a profound weakness of mine, or anything like that, it just needs to matter to me enough that I need to share it.

--Chase Korte

1982-2007

Embracing Skeletons

Sarah submitted this link to a Yahoo! News article from last week. It is a photo of "a pair of 6,000-year-old skeletons found by Italian archaeologists in a dying embrace."

Photos of Saints

While I was in Egypt during January of 2004, I traveled with a group of other college students deep into the desert to visit a Coptic monastery. The monk who greeted us had been a mathematician. Now, he said, he was searching for God. I suspect it wasn't so great a leap.

The monk took us down to the crypt. He showed us an ornate, brightly lacquered coffin. He said a saint was inside and that if we touched the coffin while we prayed, the spirit of this Coptic saint would do his best to see our prayers answered.

The monk stepped away to let us pray. We took out our cameras instead. Through the flashes, I caught sight of the monk against a shadowed wall at the back of the crypt. He looked so sad.

This One Small Box

I have this box. It lives quietly on the bottom shelf of my nightstand. It doesn’t get visited all that often, but it is a very important box. It is worth more to me than all the money in a Swiss bank. If my house was burning (and my son was safe) I would likely run back inside to rescue this one small box. It is the most precious non-living thing on this earth to me.

What, you might ask, is so special about this box? Well, the box itself is really no big deal. It’s small, brown, and rather ordinary with a worn-out AT&T logo on top. Other than the “Do Not X-ray” note on its cover there is nothing particularly striking about it, but this was the box my first Valentine from my husband came in. Inside this box are dozens and dozens of hand written love letters, the result of us being apart for four months very early on in our love-affair. This box contains my hard-evidence of the crazy, all-encompassing love that lived here on earth for a while. As I read the words of some of these letters I can’t help but feel that my husband misses me now just as much as I miss him.

So, when I find myself desperately lonely for this person I loved so much that has now left, I simply open up this box and read his words of our love. His words, written in his own hand, sustain me. I know for certain that they will, in fact, sustain me for the rest of my life. This box will help me remember to be hopeful, to remember that love like this does exist here on earth, if only for a little while. I am thankful that I was able to be a part of this love that was and am grateful every day for the gift of this one small box.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Contributed by Sarah.

Uncle Louis

Last weekend, I ate breakfast with good friends at Uncle Louis Cafe in Duluth. It's a hole-in-the-wall kind of diner. It's a place where you can get a full breakfast for five bucks, never see the bottom of your coffee cup, and cheer on the latest challenger to the pancake-eating record (eight or nine cakes) tacked to the wall behind the counter.

Even though I moved away two years ago, the purple-haired waitress at Louis still knows exactly what I want.

She was scribbling my order down as she approached the table. "You havin' your usual?"

"What else would I order?"

"You know, we changed things up a little bit since you've been gone. You can get french toast instead of pancakes, if you want."

"I'll stay with the chocolate-chip pancakes."

"Alright, but chocolate-chip french toast is pretty good, too." She scribbled something more down. "You going with the hashbrowns today?"

"You know it," I replied.

She eyed me skeptically. "You sure? Remember you didn't finish it last time."

"That was months ago." I grasped for any shred of redeeming evidence. "I'm hungry enough."

"Alright, alright," she said.

The purple-haired waitress returned a half-hour later to clear the plates from our table. She shook her head when she saw mine.

"You did a shit-job eating your breakfast."

"I'm sorry. I'll start training on the weekends."

"You said that last time you were here and you still didn't finish."

I threw my hands up. "You're right. I'm a bum." I shook my fist in the air and cried, "I coulda been a contender. I coulda been a contender."

She laughed, leaving behind a tab, written in that secret diner script, for the four of us to puzzle over and split.

It's getting really beautiful, now

I wrote the following on a napkin from a fast food restaurant last April. It also appears in the opening pages of the 2006 Liner, Hamline University's yearbook.

"It's getting really beautiful, now." I say that to myself whenever things start to fall apart. Like a mantra with the intake of every breath.

In the slipping of one moment into the next, in the dissolution of present circumstance, the shards of what I hoped mattered glimmer. With a new start, there I am in them. A thousand little parts, each image still unmistakably me.

I could gather them up, build something and cast a shadow. But there's something worth noting right now. It compels me to stand still, breathe, and let the pieces rest undisturbed for a few moments longer.

Chapel Ceilings

Scattered throughout my little black notebooks are pieces of a story I made up about Michelangelo, the Renaissance painter. It takes place when he's older and stuck at a stuffy court banquet.

A snobby moralist is lamenting over the decline in art, spittle drying on chapped lips. "I mean, these artists, they paint prostitutes and bowls of fruit, of all things. What happened to the divine in art?" He gestures, sweeping his bored audience's attention to Michelangelo, "What happened to the Sistine Chapel?"

Michelangelo doesn't look up from the shapes he's drawing on the table with beads of spilled wine. "I could paint the Chapel," he says, "because I painted the pears and the prostitutes, all of them, like they belong on a chapel ceiling."

Most of this is in Italian, of course. And none of it actually happened.

Half-Marathon

On March 31st, I am going to attempt to run a half-marathon. My goal is simply to finish without walking, but I have decided that it is a good idea to prepare myself so I don’t die trying. For the past few weeks, I’ve been running in the afternoons after school. Normally, I like to run by myself, listening to my discman and working off the stress of the day.
Last Thursday, I started to run just like any other day. I was ready to go with my music, and looking forward to a nice, slow 5K jog. However, right before I reached to main dirt road, a 15 year old girl came running after me. “ke nyaka go kitima le leina,” she said. (I want to run with you). She was wearing a tank top (and no bra), a wrap-around skirt, and had no shoes. I agreed to let her come, thinking that she would last about 100m, then turn around and go home. So we started to run. She was running rather fast, and I had to struggle to keep up with her. Again, I thought that she would tire of this pace and turn around in no time. But she kept running. Fast.

We passed the stream with the goats and cows drinking. We passed Koko (my 71-year old host mother), who was out herding the goats. And we kept going. Pretty soon, I heard little voices behind us. About 8 small children, none over the age of 9, were sprinting after us. They also wanted to run. However, I knew that they wouldn’t be able to keep up. Chasing after us was a fun game, and they would quickly tire of the long jog. …wrong again! Somehow, these children (also without shoes), managed to run the rest of the way with us. They were sweating and breathing hard, but each one kept up—and they were going faster than me!!

So here I was, out of breath, running very fast so that I would not be beaten by a bunch of kids without shoes, as many of the villagers watched on. When we were about 1 km from home, we once again passed Koko. This time though, she raced out to the road and started running with us!! It was quite the spectacle for Jakkalskuil to see: a white girl, a bunch of shoeless kids, and a grandmother in a long dress, all running together on the dirt road!!

will admit, I was very skeptical of this rag-tag group of running partners, but now I’ve found that they are the best incentive I have, and will help me to not only finish the half marathon, but run rather fast as well!

Contributed by Erica.
For more stories from South Africa, visit http://ericainsouthafrica.blogspot.com/