Wider world – Page 4 – My Truant Pen

A remarkable thing happened to me

I’m not sure I’ve ever gone into my own origin mythology in this venue, but it goes like this. I was born and raised in the middle of nowhere. Well, actually several middles of several nowheres. But I was born in a small village called Tshikaji, in the Kasai Province of what was then the Zaire and what is now the People’s Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was the bush of a rural province in a shockingly underdeveloped country in the very middle of Africa. For context, it took my grandparents six weeks after the fact to learn I had been born… in 1978.

Tshikaji - a long way from Boston in every sense — Tshikaji – a long way from Boston in every sense

There is very little emigration from DRC Congo to the US. It got hit hard and early by the AIDS epidemic (that’s where it started, folks). I have met Kenyans, Ghaneans aplenty, Ivorians, South Africans, Algerians… but in my entire adult life, I do not believe I have ever “run into” someone from Congo – even the bustling capital city Kinshasa – never mind the remote corner that nurtured me.

With that complete not-foreshadowing, let me look back to last weekend. Saturday was the day of the Stoneham Family Fun day! (Yes, that’s what it is really called.) Last year we had fun on the rides, so when a neighbor texted that they were headed down, I rallied the troops and we went down ourselves. To my disappointment, there were hardly any rides but way more booths. Fortifying my children against disappointment with various sugary snacks, we wandered around, talked to our friends, and desultorily walked through the booths. Grey tugged at my arm and said he wanted to show me a mask. I followed him.

The booth he lead me to was full of African art. I stopped, stilled with the stunning familiarity of it. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind, at one glance, this was Congolese art. I went up to the proprietor and asked, “Where is this from?” “Africa,” he replied. My heart ached that this would be the level of detail he finds appropriate. “Where in Africa?” “The Congo.” “DR Congo or Republic of Congo?”* “DR Congo”.

I knew it.

“I was born in DR Congo” I told him. “In Tshikaji, in Kasai”. Congo is a Biiiiiiig country. Odds were very good he was from the capital and had never been that far South.

His face lit up! Ahhh! He cried! My home!

He explained to his lady-companion in Tshiluba – a language I have not heard spoken by a native speaker in 31 years – that I was from his home. Oh, the reunion we had! I trotted out my 15 words: counting to 10, the word for buttermilk, the name that had been given to me as an infant. With every discovery of shared experience there were exclamations of astonishment by both of us. He was from Kasai. He had been to Tshikaji. I believe I caught that he was born in the same hospital I was born in. I named the pastor who had baptized me, and the tears streamed down the face of his lady. They knew that pastor well. I made my son sing the one song I carried over with me, Grey parroting phrases that I myself parroted. The recognition of it washed over them.

I cannot tell you what it meant to me, to meet these people. I cannot tell you how strange it was – to see new versions of art very like the ones my parents have had on their walls at every home I lived in – that are up right now in the living room of their house. I cannot explain the flush of recognition at this language I spoke once, as a child.

I can say that I was tempted to buy one of everything. I bought some things – particularly lovely, or that really reminded me of my childhood. We said farewell. Still dazed by recognition, I called my mom. “You’ll never guess what just happened, mom.” I returned, brought my cell phone to him and he and my mom had a conversation in Tshiluba. (He told me her Tshiluba is very good. She told me she understood maybe one word in four.)

And that is the story of how, under the tolling bells of the carillon in a sleepy New England town, I met Jean Pierre Tshitenge and was transported to another time and place, as far from the Town Square as it is possible to go.

*Note: there are conveniently two Congos in Africa. I come from DR Congo or Congo Kinshasha. If you’re older than, say, 50, you probably know it as the Belgian Congo. The name changed from Zaire to “Democratic Republic of Congo” in 1997 as Mobutu Sese Sako’s kleptocracy was toppled. When I applied for a passport in 1999, I entered my place of birth as Zaire because, well, that’s what it was then. The State Department actually noted my birth location as Congo-Brazzaville. The wrong one. I did eventually get it fixed, but I thought it was funny that it was so obscure and rare that the State Department got it wrong.

If you are going to San Francisco

The other day I created a new Pandora station. It goes back to the guitar lessons, you see. There’s this Simon and Garfunkel song (Kathy’s Song) that I want to learn how to play. I then discovered that somehow my Simon and Garfunkel hadn’t made it to my new computer, and thus not to my phone. Let’s just put some ellipses in here that cover the fact that 4 interventions later, I still do not have Kathy’s Song on my phone to play for my teacher nor my oldest favoritest CDs onto my new laptop which is synced with my iPod.

But in the long journey towards getting my music in a place I can listen to it, I realized I hadn’t heard much Simon and Garfunkel lately, and that cannot stand. Enter the Pandora station.

And people, this is the best Pandora station ever. It’s basically the singer song-writers of the 60s, with these great voices, acoustic guitars and fantastic lyrics. This year for Valentine’s day one of us got tickets to the ballet and one of us got an awesome sound system for the tv. Adam has a blast with him mom at the ballet, and with the Roku I can stream my music and it sounds great. So I’ve been listening to Pandora through this sound system with this rocking new station. Now, back in the old days, before they invented NPR (or more accurately, before any sort of talk radio actually made its way to the boonies where we lived – and yes I am older than talk radio) my family listened to the Oldies station. This was like the 80s, so oldies meant the 60s, as opposed to now when oldies mean the 80s. These are songs I actually recognize!

The other day, I stayed up way too late with some friends playing a game that had been popular in my youth. This game is basically, “Just how out of touch is Brenda with everything pop culture”. In the modern edition it involved a playlist of Songs I Should Really know and then gales of laughter as I guessed Completely Inappropriate Bands. Let’s be honest… while I stand a decent chance of correctly pairing a aria with its composer, if not its opera, I can’t tell Aerosmith from Lynrd Skynr.

Anyway, I’ve been listening to these old songs, new songs, lovely songs. I’ve been hearing the words far more clearly than I did in the back seat of the station wagon, waving in and out through distant FM waves. Some of the songs I completely misinterpreted. For example, I was listening to My Sweet Lord. At first I thought, ‘What a beautiful Christian anthem! Wonder why I haven’t heard it sung at a church service?’ All the “alle”s heading up to an “alleluia”. Yeah, I hear you laughing now. It’s not “alle” like “alleluia”. It’s “Hare” like “Hare Krishna”. Oops!

Some of the other songs from the 60s break my heart and make me want to cry. Long on that list have been Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream and Imagine. This particular playlist is fond of If You Are Going to San Francisco. I’m increasingly struck by the hopefulness, the belief they had that this time it could really be different – the world could really be new. There was a spirit of joy that is so compelling, so lovely. The song simply promises that if you come to San Francisco, you should wear some flowers in your hair, and you will meet gentle people there. Gentle people. How often today are we offered gentle people? When is the last time you heard someone called gentle, or were called gentle yourself. We do not aspire to gentleness, we do not claim to desire gentleness.

The flower children of the 60s were younger then than I am now, and their childhood seems lovely to me. My parents were of that generation (although decidedly not flower children). The persuasive hope and gentleness and optimism of a generation were erased, assassinated, worn down, made illegal, caricatured and faded. There are not unironic people in San Francisco – gentle – with flowers in their hair. We would say that John Lennon was a dreamer – and he died a violent death. He might not have been the only one when he sang, but I hear many fewer dreamers on Kiss 108.

I get tired of irony, cynicism and self-consciousness. Our artists cannot afford sincerity. The internet, the media channels… they stand ready to mock the slightest weakness. Hope seems impossibly naive. The Boomers couldn’t change the world – what chance do the Millennials have, or those of us whose generation comes at the end of the alphabet? I look back to the childhood of my parents, the thrill of change, and I wish I had gone to San Francisco with flowers in my hair.

I leave you with some thoughts from Bob Dylan:

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.

Back in the saddle again

So I went back to work today. My extensive period of absolute leisure came to a close. Of course, it was significantly impacted by having no daycare on Monday, and Thane having a “vomit every 12 hours stomach bug” for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. But oh! The Tuesday!

Ah well. Isn’t that how it always happens? I did not program a DROID app. I did not clean the attic. I did not finish transferring things to the new computer. I did not conquer Mt. Laundry. I did play a bunch of FABLE, do three PT session, get excused from all future knee-related work, make a gourmet meal and take care of a sick little boy.

Anyway, I’d forgotten how darn tiring newness is. Everything was new today. New routine, new kind of commute (bus! at least until the T cancel it!), new worries (will I make the bus?), new failures (didn’t have enough money on my Charlie Card because the bus is an express, forgot my Kindle and really needed to have headphones for online training but didn’t), new people, new cultural expectations. Phew. New is hard. But I think once I get past the new and into the rhythm, this is going to be a pretty cool thing! Heck, their first expectation for me was to get a fully functioning IDE up and running on my computer. Niiiiice. I’m back, folks!

Momento mori

An angel of the sea with a broken anchor

I’ve always loved graveyards. I remember being six and going to the graveyard overlooking Bonners Ferry, and thinking how lovely it was. I am particularly fond of older graveyards. I have taken many a happy walk through graveyards. In fact, I walked through graveyards during labor with both my sons (different graveyards). I love the quiet and peace of a cemetary. I enjoy reading the headstones and wondering about the relationship and lives of the remembered. I’m particularly fond of gravestones that hold some message for those left behind to read.

In the oldest New England graveyards, in New London, for example, the messages can be downright depressing – about how the inhabitant of the grave is in hell and if you aren’t more careful you will be too. One of my favorite classes in college was “Death, Dying and the Dead”, in which I learned that the whole purpose of the “pastoral graveyard” (of which Mt. Auburn in Cambridge is a prime example, and Arlington National Cemetery another) was to invite the living to remember the temporary status of their condition.

Anyway, with bright and fair weather, I took a walk to our local graveyard. It is no Mt. Auburn, granted. It sits high on a hill overlooking a Dunkin’ Donuts and used sports equipment store. It is the second oldest graveyard in town. The town was founded in 1725, so we have had significant history to bury. The oldest graveyard is next to the YMCA childcare center, but we aren’t permitted to wander there because it is (apparently) unsafe. (I imagine falling through an unstable burial chamber, and complain only a little.) This cemetery – Lindenwood – is also not the Catholic Cemetery. That’s further down the road. Lindenwood dates back to the early 1800s. A small stream runs picturesquely through, in a wooded glade at the bottom of the hill. The hallowed ground holds the remains two young brothers, whose mother updates their shared tombstone regularly. There’s a congressional medal of honor winner (WWII, by the dates). One of the last heroes of the now-nearly-forgotten Spanish American war lies there. In a few places, rings of white marble with initials surround large and imposing monuments, marking the final resting place of families. Sometimes this dignified white marble is marked with “Mom” and “Dad” – no names.

In this recent trip, I found quite possibly the creepiest tombstone EVER. Usually, as I tell myself stories about the people lying here (and perhaps more interestingly, the people who stood at their funerals), I can imagine what they were thinking when they made the choices they made. They decorate grandma’s grave with Christmas ornaments because she always went overboard at Christmas. The 30 year old who died in the 80s, but whose tombstone shows an infant going to God? Perhaps he was severely Downs Syndrome and his parents never saw him as a grown man. But I cannot for the life of me fathom what was going through the mind of the relations who placed this marble monument:

At the bottom it says, "Watching and waiting"

I can’t think of a single non-creepy interpretation of that one. It’s straight out of a Stephen King novel.

So how about you? Avoid cemeteries at all costs? Like to wander them? Find it morbid? What’s the creepiest you’ve ever seen? And what possible non-freaky interpretation could there be of Cora’s tomb?

Ignore the Mom behind the curtain

I know that I could be accused of painting rosy pictures of life. I’m sure you’ve all heard of the Facebook effect, where it seems like all your Facebook friends are immaculately put together, live in perfect houses, go on great adventures, and generally live a life far more awesome than your own. This is because all of us edit our narratives. We want to share the exciting/flattering bits, and tend to downplay the mundane/embarrassing ones. (And if we don’t, unless we are FANTASTIC writers who could make imaginary dialogues between deodorants hilarious – looking at you here Amalah – our readership is quite limited.)

Anyway, what I’m saying is that I know my blog is like that. All the fun stuff, all the picturesque stuff, all the deep thinking, and none of the “I’m a complete mess”. But guess what… sometimes? I’m a complete mess.

Let’s begin our story when our heroine left work 15 minutes late because she was in a not-fun meeting. (As opposed to a fun meeting, which happens roughly never.) So. Late. Rainy night. I check my text message alert, and it’s riiiiight on the borderline between freeway or back roads.* I call to see if it’s changed, and I find out that it got really bad on the freeway, so I opt for my backroad commute. Tick tock, tick tock, the daycare clock!

Did I mention my husband has been in Florida for a week, and although due back will not be in time to pick up the kids? No, I didn’t because I never let teh intarwebs know these kind of things in advance, just in case. But Adam was in Florida, so there was no calling him if I didn’t make it on time (which is my usual backup).

Then, just as I had fully committed to the backroads route and there was no turning back… whammo. Traffic stopped moving. Like, one or two cars a light. There’s never a backup here!?! Five minutes, I didn’t sweat. But then it turned to ten, fifteen, twenty. When I had 15 minutes to do 30 – 45 minutes of commuting, I panicked. I called all my parent friends (including those I should have known were like, you know, in Dallas.. hoping he was kidding when he told me who I was interrupting…) asking if anyone could pick up my kids. Of course, it’s extra complicated because who wanders around with two extra car seats? No one! In fact, almost none of my friends has a car that can seat two extra kids never mind car seats. And it was raining, hard! And super dark! Yay! Fun! Finally, I reached one friend (actually there at that moment picking up her kids) and we cobbled together a plan that involved her taking my kids to my neighbor’s house and then returning to the center for her own. I gave my permission over the phone to the daycare people to release my kids almost as I was passing the accident.

Phew. Can I say this? Three years ago, I wouldn’t have known what to do. I don’t know how I got this lucky, but I have awesome friends who have my back and are there for me when I need them, and I am SO GRATEFUL. I may be alone while my husband’s gone, but I’m not unsupported.

Anyway, so I come home. I park my car. I put my backpack inside, and head down the payment full of adrenalin and frustration to my neighbor’s house to retrieve my children. And just as my sidewalk joins my neighbors, I stepped on a rock wrong, and went down HARD.

I had one of those moments that stretched very long. I was on the ground, rain falling poetically onto my face, right leg obviously badly scratched up, but truly wondering if I had just popped the graft on my left leg, and I would have to do this fantastic surgery all over again. With the rush of pain and adrenalin and fear, I couldn’t tell how bad my left leg was. I could tell I’d done something non-zero, but was it epic? Was it a pull? Was it just the persistent tendon tightness we’re fighting at PT and nothing wrong at all? I had to wait, on the ground, for several very long minutes to find out. I’m extremely happy to report that based on knee function and subsequent pain, it is nothing serious. However, I’m deeply saddened to report that my absolute favorite pair of tights that are incredibly comfortable have come to the end of their lives. Also, I did a number on my shoe. Finally, I also scratched up my good leg (but I care less because eh! It’s only a flesh wound!)

Are you getting tired of pictures of my leg injuries?

I picked myself back up and continued down. Things improved. I walked in on my neighbors feeding my children. They very generously put a plate out for me too. I sat at the table and watched my children rough-housing and being rude and periodically yelling things at them like, “No throwing Christmas ornaments at the dog!” and I was just so very very grateful that I wasn’t alone.

Then I came home, and put them to bed over an hour early, because oh. Those children. Based on the fact they both went to sleep, I think they must have been tired. Then I had to do worky work for an hour. Now I’m writing an unflattering blog post about my own incompetence.

So what about you? Have you ever had a day like this – falling far short of tragic but definitely rising to the level of highest annoyance?

* This is super helpful, so let me share. Navteq allows you to set up a commute and a schedule. Then every day you set up, it texts you a numerical value of how your commute is. I have mine set to check the route at 4:45. So every work day at 4:45 I get a text message with a number. Through experience I know that at 2 or over, I’m better off taking back roads. Additionally, in the text message, you can call a number at any point and ask how your commute is now and they’ll give you the latest conditions. I would pay for this service, but I get it for free. It’s fantastic for those of us with highly variable commutes.

Red sky at morning

I awoke briefly this morning at dawn and looked out the window. It was astonishingly red and rosy – like the most florid of Pacific sunsets.

Sailors take warning.

We’re battening down the hatches here. Of course so many New England storms are overhyped, and so few live up to even a portion of their media coverage. Whether Irene will fall in that category remains to be seen. But we’re ready. Our house is in the middle of a hill – protected from wind but far above standing water damage. Most of the trees around us have been taken down – I think there’s only one tall enough to hit us. I have 10 gallons of water in the basement. I have our camping lanterns. I have enough batteries to get us through the long winter. I have enough food to last a month (assuming that the gas doesn’t get cut). I have cash and two cars with full tanks of gas.

I also lost my wallet last night. So far I’m not seeing any activity on the cards, but talk about the worst possible time to misplace your wallet. I really believe that it’s lost somewhere in the house or at work. I had it Thursday night at 10:30 pm when I went grocery shopping. The only thing I did between that and when I missed it was go to work. But seriously, I’ve looked everywhere. I really hope it miraculously appears and I don’t have to call everyone I’ve ever met to cancel my cards.

ETA: I’m DELIGHTED to let you know that after about 12 hours of worrying, I found my wallet wedged under the driver’s seat of the car. Huzzah! Now I’m ready for a hurricane.

Today is a kind of weird day. There’s no storm or rain yet – it’s perfectly fine outside. The storm isn’t really supposed to start until late tonight or early tomorrow. But the state of emergency starts at noon. And what do we do today?

I reckon it’s a good day to get my shaggy dudes a haircut!

Minor miraculous detours

You’ve had the bones of our summer vacation – the bright lights on warm summer nights revealing the shadows of majesty in the theater. But there were other moments too.

The journey from Mt. Rainier (more or less) to Ashland usually takes about 7 and a half hours – if you stick on I5, go 70 and don’t stop. But it’s not what you would call a lovely drive (at least not until about Roseville). It had been years since I’d been to the Oregon Coast, and none of my memories of it are strong. So I decided this was an ideal time to rectify that.

It took us quite some time to get from Kelso/Longview to the water views on 101 in Oregon. Once we did, winding slowly behind lumbering RVs, the fog rolled in and there were few and dangerous views of the roiling waves below. Then, at one, we just stopped. Parked. Got out of the car and walked.

I had warned Adam not to expect sandy beaches. My (dim) memories were of rocky shorelines and dancing from dry-foot-fall to dry-foot-fall among the tidepools. But much of the Oregon coast line was sandy and lovely. This beach had large pebbles, then small pebbles then sand. There were uncompromising rocks erupting from smooth beds, like bullet holes through stop signs. We walked around a cape, carefully and quickly, to avoid the waves. We wanted to linger longer, but the pounding surf would soon make our retreat impossible. We stood, looked, listened, enchanted. I have long thought that the West was underlauded in stories and song. These coasts and mountains and forests deserve a rich, deep mythology. Those fogs should hide legends and rumors of legends. Those peaks should be shrouded in many names, mysteries and prophecies. And on this day, the waters of the Pacific, throwing themselves upon the unrelented shores of New Albion, were truly mystical.

But all stories come to an end, so we climbed back up to the car, rolled down the windows, and kept on. 101 jogged inland for a bit – more dairy farms than mystical rocky outcroppings – before lurching back out to the coast. We found a good radio station playing classic rock and roll, ignore the hours and miles in front of us, and sped onward.

An hour or so before dark, we stopped again. The northern fogs had lifted, and only the salt spray obscured the coast line. The beach where we stopped was a long one, with summer cottages redolent in childhood coming-of-age stories perched along the bluff, ending with a lighthouse that looked like the painted background on a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. We climbed down through scrub to the deserted beach. The water snuck up, like the serpent in Eden, to entice us in. Quickly shoes were discarded and jeans rolled up past the knee, and we stood touching the majesty of the unfettered ocean.

That half hour spent there, feet sinking into sand, waves crashing into us, eyes towards the sunset, was one of the most magical I have know. There we were, in love, together. We held hands before the eroding power of the Earth, strong together. We laughed, watched and exhaled our shallow breaths. It was with great reluctance that we finally put our shoes back on and climbed back up the bluff.

All was well with my detour (carefully negotiated with the help of Google maps with my husband who-does-not-love-road-trips) and I regretted not a minute of it. But it was 7 pm and we had between five and six hours of driving left in front of us. I was well rested, experienced and not too worried. With the last light of the long Western twilights, we turned onto Rt. 38 to Rt. 138 for the last haul to our rest.

It should be mentioned, at this point, that I am an extremely experiences mountain-road-night-driver. I learned to drive on mountain roads in the dark – usually while it was raining and I was super tired. I regularly came home from the theater in Seattle at 1 am when I was in high school. The roads I drove on were car-commercial-curvy with no lights. I remember some nights where the only point to the headlights were to be seen, not to see, since the lamp of the full moon offered more illumination than the paltry output of the forward lights.

I have never, in my life, seen a blacker road than I drove that night. There were no towns or outposts. There were no lights at the tops of hills. The moon was a memory, perhaps never to return. The stars were up there, but hidden and dimmed behind a high mist. The world was shrunken and swallowed to whatever dim advice came from my headlights, and my reflexes entirely guided by staying between the yellow reflectors and the white reflectors. We were far from rest or guidance and tiring fast – and in elk country. We were the only souls fool-hardy enough to be braving that stretch of highway in the dark. The road followed etching of the Umpqua River through the mountains, gleaming in starlight to my right, but beholden to the urgings of water (which are not the straight lines of men). Translation: it was curvy and windy and unpredictable, as well as dark. I do not believe two hours driving has ever left me as worn and weary as that two hours did. By the time we ceased our digression and made it back to I5, I gratefully passed the keys over to my husband.

But really, look at this road and note how green and unamended are the mountains through which it passes! (101 to 38 to 138 to I5)

We did make it safely, of course. And then we commenced our time in Ashland, returned home by way of Crater Lake (oh most patient of husbands!), went pontoon boating with the family and then returned, in stages, to the flat coast.

This is, sadly, the last report of my vacation that you will get. There’s one more story to tell, but I think it shall come from memory instead of journalism. But as a parting sweetener, I offer you these pictures!

Vacation 2011 Pictures

199th Commencement of the Princeton Theological Seminary

This weekend, I left New England and my boys behind to drive down to New Jersey to watch my brother graduate (again). This degree was his Master of Divinity — the degree needed by a Presbyterian in order to pursue ordination as a Minister of the Word and Sacrament. (Technical note: you don’t actually BECOME a Minister until you find a church that wants you to come and minister to them. It’s a bit like a marriage. Both parties have to be present for a wedding to take place, and for an ordination for ministry to take place. So if you happen to know a nice Presbyterian church in search of a young, energetic pastor fluent in Latin and Greek, I can hook you up.)

It was a bit of a throwback weekend for me. I was with parents and sibling, but without my children. I was a bit mobility limited, due to what is technically referred to as “a busted knee”*, which was a pity because the Princeton campus was lovely, the weather was lovely and would have richly rewarded wandering. Also, my brother’s room required significant work to clean out, and the best I could do was to supervise. We got to appreciate all my brother’s favorite food hangouts, which were surprisingly quite tasty.

199th Princeton Theological Seminary Graduation

The graduation ceremony itself was rather momentous. It was scheduled to conclude right when the rapture was supposed to take place. I reckoned there were worse places to be found at the moment of judgement than in a graduation ceremony that was more than half worship service. The ‘chapel’ was an imposing cathedral. The brass choir, seminary choir and vast pipe organ filled it with sounds ethereal and stentorian. We, the assembled congregation (it really was a congregation, not a crowd) sang all seven verses of “All Creatures of Our God and King”. If you thought there were only five verses, so did I. The fifth verse is ok, but the sixth verse downright funereal:

And thou, most kind and gentle death,
Waiting to hush our latest breath,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thou leadest home the child of God,
And Christ our Lord the way hath trod:
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

That sober tone threaded through the graduation ceremony. In a high school or undergraduate graduation, there is a sense of rowdiness, celebration, accomplishment and future wonder. With this graduation, there was more a sense of hard work and challenge begun than of hard work and challenge accomplished. As we walked out, my mother said, “It reminded me of when we were commissioned as missionaries. You know that some of those who have gone before you became martyrs.” There were three graduates from Myanmar, to return to that country. Martyrdom is, perhaps, not so remote a possibility for them. There was also a sense swirling in the air of the changes to the church that this next generation will face. The ways we have worshiped together over the past centuries are not working as well in this new millennium, and even the oldest and most dignified of the the church fathers and mothers know it. Yesterday they commissioned my brother, and his classmates, to fearlessly find a new way to worship God and tell the old old story in a new new way.

Still, it wasn’t a depressing service, just a serious one. There was one moment that I’d been looking forward to for three years. You see, my brother has two middle names. If you say his full name, you say a (modified) version of the first four books of the New Testament (the Gospels). My brother has gone by the nickname Gospel for years. As his name was read, though, a chuckle spread through the crowd. If any crowd would get his full name, it was this one! Perfect.

Today, we went to church at Six Mile Run Reformed Church (where my brother has worshiped for three years), put together a masterful logistical plan for getting everyone where they needed to go, wished my brother and his girlfriend safe travels in their cross country tour, and went our ways. Next up: camping!

Good News Bad News in their pre-graduation concert

My parental family, missing only my sister.

*My knee is actually super much more better. I went to the Orthopedic surgeon on Thursday afternoon, and he pronounced my injury a sprained ligament (can’t remember which one), and strained calf and hamstring muscles. So bad, but temporary. It’s already hugely better, and recovery will be a matter of days to weeks, instead of weeks to months. I already had my first PT session, and I have significant range of motion back. So that’s good! But I didn’t want to push it by overextending.

Kneed an update?

I am categorically incapable of figuring out how sick/injured I am. I hate it. Unless you’re running a fever, it’s so…. subjective. I mean, I have quite a high pain tolerance. I gave birth without so much as Motrin twice. (Witnesses claim I whined a bit towards the end of the second time, but what do they know?) I also apparently find my own motives hiiiiighly suspect. I must, in my heart of hearts, think I’m a lazy piker who’s totally overselling this hurt thing to get sympathy.

So when people ask me how I’m doing (or what happened to you) my knee-jerk reaction is to make a joke or a light comment out of it. Deflect. I don’t have the data to back up any assertion I might make.

How am I doing? Well, yesterday I used — and needed — crutches. I discovered I have a lot of upper body strengthening I need to do. (See there? Deflection.) Yesterday I found the walk between desk and car appallingly difficult. Yesterday I was mentally shaky and foggy – I’m still not sure why.

Today is better. I got a good night’s sleep. I stayed off my leg all afternoon and evening yesterday (except putting the boys to bed). I iced it and elevated it. This morning when I got up, it felt noticeably better. But as one of my colleagues reminded me this morning, healing from these kinds of injuries is not linear. By 3 pm today I felt completely worn down, sore, swollen all over. That’s actually been one of the harder parts – my entire body seems swollen and bloated, possibly from lack of accustomed movement, or maybe a side effect of the medications I’ve been taking.

I have an appointment with an Orthopedic surgeon on Thursday. The office is so close to my house, I could walk it. One block. It will feel completely lame-o to drive. I presume the dr. will do a cursory examination and then order an MRI. Another few days for that, and then I’ll finally have some facts. (Of course, if the facts indicate it shouldn’t be that bad, I’ll feel silly.)

I also totally need a better story about my injury. This one takes too long. “I jumped off a four foot wall” is sort of odd unless you get ALL the backstory behind it, which is jut tedious. No one seems to be buying the “ambush attack by kung fu ninjas” version, either. Darn it all.

So that’s where I am: wishing I had actual data to quantify my injury/pain, feeling somewhat better, trying hard not to push it, going to the doctor on Thursday.

Herodotus (I)

Our family’s “plan” afor cars is to buy a new car every five years. The way this plan (theoretically) works is that we take out a four year loan on a car, get a year to build up a down payment, and then trade out our oldest car. Since we’ve been married just over 10 years, we have one or two cycles of this under our belt.

There are, however, a few challenges. For instance, 9 years ago when we bought Brunhilde, we had no children. Now we have two. Two children requires slightly more space (and stuff) than zero children. I spent all last year wishing for a slightly bigger car, mostly because of camping. See, camping with two children for four days in a Toyota Matrix with no roof rack required slightly less planning and spatial reasoning than your average shuttle launch. We shivered our way through the early and late seasons because there wasn’t enough room for me to bring sufficient blankets for the weather. The kids get like two toys for the whole time because more won’t fit. And if Grey’s feet ever get long enough to touch the floor, we won’t be able to bring the cooler anymore. I thought about renting a larger car for those four weekends… but that ends up being quite expensive — almost a car payment per four day weekend for an SUV.

Then Brunhilde, our 2002 Saturn, starting making an odd kathunk while being driven. We brought her to about 5 different mechanics and spent many oodles of dollars getting her fixed. Then, a month later she started thunking again. I couldn’t bring myself to go through that all the repair rigmarole and cost again, so I stuck my hands over my ears and said “LALALA” as loudly as I could. This worked for several months. In fact, the car is still drivable.

The car as seen in the rear view mirror.

Still, over the last six or so weeks, we gradually worked our way through the possible candidates. I didn’t like the Honda Odyssey at all, and it was crazy expensive. We loved the Dodge Journey from the outside, and it looked pretty, but driving it was somehow disconcerting and backing it up was terrifying. I had high hopes for the Toyota Rav 4 (I was holding out for a third row seat), but the 3rd row on the Rav 4 was pathetic. Not even my mother-in-law, whom I have stuffed into the hatchback trunk of a tiny Mazda (the first time I ever met her!) would not fit in it. We didn’t even bother driving it.

I added the bumper sticker when I paid her off.

That left one candidate standing. The Kia Sorento. Seats 7 (as long as none of them has any luggage). Gets up to 29 mpg (theoretically). Came shockingly fully loaded at the base (I’m enjoying Sirius radio, bluetooth phone connectivity, backup cameras & radar, and most importantly a butt warmer). We opted for Tuscan Olive and spent several hours signing away the next five years of our life. (What can I say, it was too expensive for four years. At least it was at 1.9%?)

We’ve named it Herodotus, since I just finished reading Herodotus’ Persian Wars. Thane is utterly cute telling you that we have a new green car named Herodotus. (I haven’t had the heart to tell him it’s actually tuscan olive.)

To digress to car naming, our first car – which my husband was given in 1997 – was Olaf. Then Brunhilde, another Saturn. We still have Hrothgar, a 2007 Toyota Matrix (blue!) and now Herodotus. We keep getting more ancient. I think the next car might have to be Gilgamesh. And I don’t know where you go after that!

Brunhilde, having done 9 years of yeoman labor, was despised by the dealership. Something about a thunking sound. I guess it would’ve been too much to hope they would miss that. I tried pointing out that her stereo was probably worth half of what they were offering, but they would have none of it. I finally decided to donate her to WBUR. At worst I’ll get a tax deduction roughly equivalent to her trade in value. At best, I’ll get a better one than that and ‘BUR will get cash too. Seems like a win/win.

In early days, I must admit that Herodotus is bigger than he seemed in the showroom. Putting him in our tiny narrow driveway aptly makes the point that he’s rather wider than his predecessor. And the fuel efficiency tracking is so far well under the promised range, making me worried that I failed to fulfill one of the conditions I cared most about. Do you get points for trying really, really hard? I finally have a trunk LARGER than a Costco cart, which I proved amply today. Also, I’d forgotten how freeing it was to drive old cars that were mostly or totally paid off.

But boy, it is nice not to thunk my way down the highway.