Moonlight Sonata

I have this dream. It is small, stupid, and beautiful.

I would like to learn to play Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. It is the only song I want to learn and the only song I ever want to practice. I want my hands to grow arthritic playing that song. I want my back to weaken so I curl up into myself playing that song.

I want to walk into bars around the world, buy a beer, dust off the ill-tuned piano, set my drink next to me on the bench, close my eyes, and play just one song.

And, when someone--a sad person, most likely--thanks me for playing, I would say that I played for God, not them, but She must have wanted you here, so won't you please have a drink with me?

And, when we're on our second drink, this stranger and I, I will lead them over to the piano and teach them the first four measures of Moonlight Sonata. I would be gentle and relentless.

And, when this stranger grows frustrated and asks, "Why do I have to know this?" I would say, this warm wisdom in my near-sighted eyes, "So you will know that whatever happens, wherever you are, you have at least one incorruptibly beautiful thing inside of you."

Then the stranger and I would practice until the reluctant bar-keep would send us on our way.

I want to die playing that song. I want my graying and senile head to drop on the keys, during a rest before the end, so God will invite me to heaven just to hear the song one more time, all the way through.

Like I said. It's a small, stupid, and beautiful dream.

Hide-and-Seek

As I travelled home yesterday I sat looking out the window of a plane at night as the bright crescent moon played a game of hide-and-seek, gracefully bobbing out of sight below the wing of the plane. It was so peaceful.

I can’t help but think how incredible it is that some day soon we may be playing this game with the earth as we travel on our way to much more distant destinations. . . and to think 100 years ago we were still travelling by horseback. Amazing.

Contributed by Sarah.

Buying the Pie

One late night my friend Charlette and I decided to make a run to Perkins for pie and coffee. Upon arrival we realized that 2 slices of pie would be $7, but it was only $10-12 to buy a whole pie. So we carefully chose some kind of crazy berry concoction of a pie...and it was horrible.

We found ourselves stuck with six extra slices of horrible pie.The moral drawn and henceforth applied to all issues of suspect in life from relationships to commitments and obligations is: "You don't always have to buy the whole pie."

Contributed by Aryn.

Experiment

This winter, my students were to write essays using a real-life hero as an example of someone who went through the archetypal Hero's Journey. There are 10 steps to this journey, and it was a bit much for some. One of the steps is "the Experience with Unconditional Love."

In grading the final product, I ran across a student who gave an example of love and then said, "which represents the 'experiment with unconditional love.'" I had to correct the name of the step for him—and I crossed out experiment to write in experience. But I cannot help but wonder if he didn't stumble onto something greater.

Maybe each new relationship we enter into is really just a new experiment with love. And we are merely testing the hypothesis that there is within everyone something that is worth loving and that something deserves to be loved unconditionally. And sometimes our experiments fail, and sometimes the results are phenomenal, but all are experiments where we have no way of knowing the end result until we give it a whirl…

Contributed by Catie.

Rilke

Recently, I read a short story by my first-year advisor, Professor Christensen. It was published in The Hamline Review in 1999. In his story, "The Links of Things," Christensen reminisces about the summer following his graduation from college. He befriends an older woman, Mrs. Estelle "Windy" Windhorst, and she renews his faith in the human race.

Along the way, Mrs. Estelle "Windy" Windhorst encourages Christensen in his reading of the poet R. M. Rilke. About a road trip to St. Louis Louis, Christensen writes:

"Later in the trip we will blow one, then two, and finally three tires--this car needed to be on blocks as little as she uses it. I change the first tire. For the second blowout we have to drive on the shoulder, precious slow, until we reach a town on the Illinois border. When we consider all the patchings to come, we decide on four new tires. While another man changes the remaining tires, I copy Rilke's poem on the Roman fountain, the water of which falls from bowl to bowl, the bowls which give and disperse, keeping none for their own. Again this is supposed to be love without nostalgia...But Windy demurs: 'There may be some receiving. But, if love is real, then it is all about giving...'

"Professor Christensen introduced me to Rilke when I was a sophomore. We met most Wednesdays after lunch. I don't remember much of what we talked about. I think he was trying to keep me from going crazy.

One Wednesday, he handed me a tattered copy of Letters to a Young Poet. I read it the same day and purchased my own copy which I promptly gave away to a friend of mine now working in South Africa and another copy a year later to a friend in Duluth. I've included that book in a list I am compiling for my niece of things she should read some day.

I like that I can trace this book through time like a family tree. I like that it will be passed on.

Shoulder Space

I used to know an elderly man named Joe. He lived on the ground floor of my apartment building. If he caught me in the hallway, he inevitably shook my hand and tried to slip me a twenty dollar bill. I protested, but he always insisted that I use the money to take a pretty girl out sometime.

We talked then. I could barely hear him. Joe told me, every time, how he had survived the Allied landing at Normandy and how he was the only one left of his brothers and sisters. He told me about the angel who always sat on his right shoulder and how she had always kept him safe.

He took my hand and set it on his shoulder and we stood there in the hallway like that until I excused myself.

Joe never asked me if I could feel his angel or anything. He wasn't crazy.

Pork Bone

In the book I went to Duluth to try and write, Vanity, I didn't survive the end of the world all alone. There was a monk with me in the bunker. He spent much of his time in deep meditation, doing his dutiful service as the world's last believer to keep a lonely God company.

The monk also spent a great deal of time coming up with new spiritual exercisesMy favorite had to be when he started examining every can of pork and beans stowed away in the bunker, trying to find the perfect can.

The monk said he was inspired by a certain institutionalized Japanese banker who spent his days in the courtyard underneath a cherry tree, searching for the perfect blossom.

I never did ask how the monk happened to know this banker. Even without an apocalypse, I don't feel I'm the one to question any one's sanity.One day, I asked the monk what would happen if he ever did find the perfect tin can.

He smiled and said, "Open up all the cans and start looking for the perfect pork bone, I imagine."

Like in Whispers

On a summer evening in Duluth, my friend, Josh, and I were sitting on a couch we had hauled out on to the lawn so we could drink beer and count cars in luxury. It was better than the concrete of the front steps we were used to.

During a lull in traffic, I asked, "Do you think people hundreds of years ago spoke more quietly than we do now?"

"Like in whispers?"

"No, just not as loud.""I don't think you and I are talking that loud."

"But we have to be." I pointed out at the empty street. "That wasn't around a couple hundred years ago."

"We adapted," Josh said.

I nodded. "Makes you wonder how quiet people used to be."

Josh smiled. "Or how much louder we're going to get."

Resolution

I'm not very clever, but I will share my New Year's Resolution in the hope it will inspire people everywhere. My resolution is to gain five pounds, maybe even a little more. That way I will be jolly. Like Santa. Nobody doesn't like Santa.

Contributed by Natalie.

Old Memories

I remembered something beautiful the other day when I was going through old memories:

I watched her walk up to the new bride. And as she gave the new bride a side hug and walked away, she uttered three really plain words: Enjoy your love. And I thought it was beautiful. Partly because she meant it. And partly because I could tell that she was still enjoying her old love.

Contributed by Catie.

John Fenn

In tenth grade, I met a playwright named John Fenn. He had the guts to come into our English class--in the year the newspapers called our school "Suicide High"--and tell us to write about the most painful thing we could think of.

Mr. Fenn told a story of how he had been flipping through a copy of National Geographic and had seen a photo of the oldest known cave painting. It was of a bear, he said, and archaeologists thought it had ritualistic significance.

Mr. Fenn shook his head and told us what he thought about the painting. He thought the bear had killed a man, a man with a mate and children. In deliberate anguish, his mate scrawled a picture of this murderer on the cave wall. He said that she was tired of mourning. He said that some ancient peoples believed that making an image of something gives one power over it.

John Fenn concluded by saying, "That which you cannot speak of controls you."

The Great Christmas Tree Mauling of 2006

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, the earth began to shake. Thump, thump, whack, splat, crash….cry? Yes, cry. In one fell swoop and in the blink of an eye my dear Christmas tree was mauled this year.

Andrew, the two year old who runs my house, slyly army-crawled under the tree, grabbed what must have been an armful of bulbs (promptly smashing each and everyone of them into tiny glass shards by beating them against a nearby window) while also managing to tangle himself up in the lights as he attempted with great stealth to reach the much-talked-about and very mysterious forbidden plug-in.

In the five seconds it took for the scene to unfold I managed to stand up and lunge towards the tree. Alas, my attempts were in vain. Down came the tree – lights, bulbs, angel, boy and all – crashing to the ground. As Andrew whimpered from under my now pathetic tree, I laughed in spite of myself at the joys of Christmas. This small tale has now become part of the folklore of our family…beautiful. Merry Christmas.

Contributed by Sarah.