Jun 29, 2012
PREAMBLE: The Promulgation, Correct Style, and Enforcement of Guidelines at the University of Opakulla College of Law are governed by these Guidelines. These Guidelines are not intended by the Promulgatrix hereof to offend any person, place, thing, animal, vegetable, or mineral.
OFFENDED PERSON UNOFFENDED PERSON
WHO: The responsibility for making exceptions to the policies set forth herein, as well as for enforcement of said policies, shall be borne by the Associate Dean for Regulation and Good Order (ADRGO).
WHAT: The general College of Law policy in regard to Promulgation, Correct Style, and Enforcement of Guidelines is as follows:
1. Guidelines shall be promulgated whenever a problem arises or whenever somebody
a. has nothing else to do OR
b. has a good deal else to do, but is in the procrastination phase of task achievement.
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2. Guidelines shall be promulgated by those offices which have direct responsibility for the Subject Matter thereby governed, or by whoever is sufficiently irritated or otherwise stimulated by the issue therein addressed.
IRRITATED PERSON
3. The Subject Matter of the Guidelines shall always be expressed with the initial letter capitalized.
4. Guidelines shall be written in the passive voice. Exceptions to this rule shall only be made by ADRGO when it has been demonstrated by the applicant for such exception, under the preponderance of the evidence standard, that her/his locutions have become so hopelessly ensnared by the passive voice that what was being attempted to be said by her/him cannot be remembered by her/him.
5. Persons found violating any College of Law Guideline once shall be chastised by whoever witnesses the violation. Such chastisement shall be promptly reported in writing to ADRGO.
6. Upon a second violation of College of Law Guidelines, the violator shall be required to undergo a two-hour written examination regarding all the College of Law Guidelines which have been promulgated up to the time of such violator’s second violation. Said examination shall be conducted at 7:00 A.M. on the Saturday following the second violation.
7. Further violations of College of Law Guidelines shall be punished either by termination of employment, or by assignment to the violator of the responsibility of filing and cataloging all past, present, and future Guidelines of the College of Law, at the complete option and discretion of ADRGO.
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I’m blissfully happy to announce that I won the Ruffin-Walz and Edna Sampson awards for best novel at the Southeastern Writers’ Association Workshop.
Jun 1, 2012
A few weeks ago I went with my sister Luli and her friend Margaret to the North Carolina Zoo in Ashboro. It was the best day I have ever spent at a zoo. Certainly the weather helped: blue sky, a steady breeze, high 70’s. But it was the zoo itself that impressed me.
The North Carolina Zoo has the advantage of space and a temperate climate – almost 1400 acres in the rural Piedmont, an hour and fifteen minutes from Chapel Hill. It was built in the mid-70’s as the first natural habitat zoo in the U.S. designed by Dwight Holland, a painter and designer who directed the zoo for many years. In the 80’s it was expanded using a master plan by Jon Coe, a landscape architect who specializes in zoos.
The zoo has two sections, North America and Africa, about a mile and a half apart as the snake slithers. We began with the cypress swamp in North America, and the contrast with other zoos was immediately apparent. The first exhibit we passed was various carnivorous plants – sundew, pitcher plants, Venus fly traps. The signs had lots of information, but not so much as to be daunting, and the ranger there answered all our questions. I loved learning a bit about the animals’ environments as well as the animals.
COLORADOCARNIVEROUSPLANTSOCIETY.COM
About 1100 animals of more than 200 species live in habitats designed to mimic their natural environment and give them as much space as possible. All the habitats are behind glass; the larger ones with ample seating – benches and risers – to let us wait for the animals to appear. Walking from one exhibit to the next we were usually in the shade, and many paths were landscaped to feel like woodland trail. The most impressive habitats were the western prairie, with elk and bison, the chimpanzee habitat, and the 37-acre African savannah, with elephants, rhinos, ostriches, antelope and gazelles.
From a visitor’s point of view, the disadvantage of large habitats is that you may not see some of the animals up close and personal, or indeed not see some of the animals at all. We arrived at the prairie and climbed up to the top step of concrete risers. A vast expanse of waving grass and wildflowers was all we could see until Luli, our best spotter, saw what might be an elk’s head in the distance above the grass. A twitching ear confirmed it. A little later we realized that what looked like some sticks next to her were velvet-covered antlers. We waited, enjoying the fresh air and wild flowers.
Human families came by, the children clambered up the steps, looked around, and moved on. Then the female elk stood up from the clump of grass and ambled toward us along the perimeter of the prairie, walking the length of the glass and disappearing into the brush at the far end. The male followed her. He was molting and his shaggy winter coat was in tatters. Finally, a calf came along – we had had no idea it was there. We probably sat fifteen minutes watching for elk, and then we moved on, past an extensive poster display about the loss of the great prairies, and modern day attempts to use the land for agriculture while preserving what native grasslands remain. We stopped at another viewing point, and under a distant clump of trees saw a dark mound that was the back of a sleeping bison.
FOTOSEARCH.COM IMAGE k1110339
We had come on a Monday, to avoid crowds of children – I thought field trips were usually on Fridays. But the first thing we saw when we arrived were about seventy-five children from the Liberty Preschool, and we saw many school groups throughout the day, as well as parents and grandparents with preschool children and babies. Despite, or perhaps because of the long walks between exhibits, and waiting sometimes in vain for a glimpse of the animals, the children and hence the parents were calmer and better behaved than I have ever seen at a zoo.
Certainly the children acted like children – growling at the cougars, yelling “Wake up!” at the alligators – but they were far happier and less whiny than I usually see at zoos. They had lots of room to run, and weren’t tugging at their parents to move from one animal to the next. Spotting the animals soon became a game for them, far more interesting than watching a couple of bears or lions pace in a small cage.
We came to the endangered red wolves. Their habitat was shady – brown ground covered with dry leaves, a shelter in the distance, a pond up by the glass. We couldn’t see any wolves. A father asked his family – “How many frogs can you find?” Together we found eight huge bullfrogs in the murky pond. Then a little boy spotted two ears behind a log, and patiently instructed me – “over there, see, just past the big tree”- how to find the wolf. Soon someone found a small red wolf over by the fence and we watched him for awhile.
The Sonoran desert, in a huge glass enclosure, was as hot as it sounds. But it was fun looking for the critters – birds, lizards, snakes – and the designer had thoughtfully provided grates in the path that blew cool air up at us.
We had arrived at the zoo at 9:30. We were desperate for coffee and ready for lunch by the time we finished the North American section. We bought bad pre-sweetened cappucino and sat in the shade at the Junction Plaza, where they have the special attractions – animatronic dinosaurs, the dino theater, a carousel – and a tram to take you between the two sections. There was a restaurant, but Luli had prepared a picnic lunch – roasted vegetables, bread and cheese, grapes and strawberries. When we were through, we took the tram to “Africa.”
We walked away from the tram, rounded a curve and suddenly saw three giraffes eating from tree tops and two zebras grazing the grass. One family was more absorbed by the turtles swimming in the pond. At the chimpanzee exhibit we watched from a distance as a toddler chimp climbed repeatedly onto a nursing mother’s head. Each time she gently lifted him off and set him on the ground. Eventually another grown chimp, a male I think, came out of the woods and enticed the toddler away with a game of stick throwing.
TREEHUGGER.COM CREDIT: SHINY THINGS/FLICKR
At the lemur island, there were a couple of red-ruffed lemurs and six ring-tailed lemurs. According to various internet sources, ring-tails hang out on the ground while red-ruffed are arboreal. Lemurs have not been informed of this. The two red-ruffed lemurs had the good sense to race around on the ground, but all the ring-tails were up in a most astonishingly spindly tree, mere twigs. They leapt and climbed from limb to limb.
RED RUFFED LEMUR: DURRELL WILDLIFE CONSERVATION TRUST RINGTAILED LEMUR. PUBLI-DOMAIN-IMAGE.COM
I was pretty tired by the time we got to the savannah. We sat on benches on the large overlook. We saw one huge elephant far in the distance, and a couple of white rhinos, a kudu, a water buck and a Thomson’s gazelle a little closer. Canada geese were everywhere, voluntary residents.
When we all agreed we were through zoo-ing, Margaret looked at her watch. It was ten minutes to five, and the zoo closed at five! We had happily stayed almost eight hours, way longer than I usually stay anywhere, but now we had visions of spending the night in the African savannah. We went down to the service road and flagged down a truck. The kind driver radio-ed a ranger in a golf cart, who came to pick us up and take us back to the tram to North America, where we had parked. We saw many families walking, but he gave us a ride because we are old. White hair is such an advantage!
There are all sorts of policy and ethical questions in regard to zoos, of course. click How do we justify penning up animals for our edification, even with the most enlightened approach to zoo design? Why is the state of North Carolina supporting a zoo that very few of its citizens can get to or afford to visit? I can just imagine the legislature that passed that appropriation – I wonder who was the legislator from Ashboro!
I know (sort of) the counter-arguments: breeding programs, preserving endangered species, fostering respect for wildlife; jobs, tourism, economic development. Jon Coe, who has generously shared information since I found him on the internet, says, “Regarding the morality of zoos, we may fault the original animal collectors, but I see today’s zoo animals as “refugees from the human war of conquest over nature.” Most zoo animals (at least mammals) were born in zoos and couldn’t survive release back into the ‘wild’ even if any suitable areas could be found which aren’t already at full carrying capacity. I believe when zoos can deliver the kind of experience you and your friends had and the quality of animal welfare NCZ provides it’s animals, then they are justified. But there certainly are zoos and especially some private collections I cannot justify.”
JON COE, ZOO DESIGNER, WITH BONOBO. used by permission
I’ve told you about my favorite parts of the zoo. Some of the habitats struck me as small, and I don’t know about caging gators and other reptiles that aren’t endangered. I can’t sort it all out, and I don’t believe I have to have a carefully-reasoned moral stand on every subject. Sometimes I just seek my pleasures in the world as it is. If you like visiting zoos, the North Carolina Zoo is worth the trip.
ENTRANCE TO THE NORTH CAROLINA ZOO
Note: In research for this post, I became totally absorbed in Jon Coe’s website, where you learn a lot about zoos, and also can see his poetry and sketches from the field (ie wild areas few of us will ever visit).click
May 4, 2012
I am not always a nice person. “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all,” was one of my mother’s favorite sayings, but sometimes…
Joe and Amanda and I went out to dinner Friday night to celebrate the end of the FCAT’s, Florida’s terrifying standardized tests. We had a wonderful time at Harry’s downtown. Joe had a weird martini, I had a normal martini, and Amanda had a Shirley Temple. She was in high spirits, and decked herself with Mardi Gras beads, which she shared with the large plaster alligator next to her.
After dinner we headed to Mochi, where the frozen yoghurt is self-serve and the toppings range from blueberries through chocolate chips to Cap’n Crunch. Amanda boogied down the street ahead of us, but waited for us at the corner before crossing.
On the corner by Mochi we encountered a fair number of people who call themselves Warriors for Christ. A young man with a crewcut was standing on a milk crate. I believe he had a megaphone. Proselytizing Christians irritate me anyway, and anyone who calls himself a Warrior is down ten points with me before he opens his mouth.
I THINK I WOULD QUALIFY AS A GENERAL HEATHEN
He did open his mouth, and addressing me, asked, “Do you care about Jesus?” I should have just said no, of course, and continued on my way. Instead I replied, “I don’t give a shit about Jesus,” (I may have used the f-word instead; I’m not sure.) “You’re going to go to hell,” he told me, as I walked on with Amanda. “And you’re going to take that little girl with you. You have a responsibility to that child.” Amanda made some gesture which I caught out of the corner of my eye; I believe she was flipping a bird.
iMAGE FROM PHOTOBUCKET BY LIBERAL NC
Amanda does believe in God and Jesus, and cares about them both when she thinks of it. I asked her whether that boy’s Jesus was the one she knows, and she said no. We agreed that the only Jesus worth knowing is all about love, not hate and aggression. After we left Mochi, we crossed the street to avoid the asshole, and encountered another young Warrior who asked if we would like a leaflet. I politely told her no thank you, and we went on.
Now the last thing I need is a callow youth telling me I have a responsibility to Amanda. As I fume about it now, I make lists of all the responsible things I do that are focused on her, and wonder whether he’s ever been responsible for more than a goldfish.
Although I am not a believer, I usually try to respect the beliefs of others. I do find it annoying that strangers feel entitled to interrogate me, but I know that many Christians feel that it is part of their duty to spread the Gospel, as it is the only path to their Heaven. They’re supposed to be fishers of men (and women and children too, I suppose).
SOURCE: CLIPART.OCHRISTIAN.COM
So I put up with them when they call to me on the street, and even when they knock on my door. Part of me is sorry I was rude, and gave a rude example to Amanda. But a bigger part of me gets a giggle whenever I think of it. Joe was happy that we had dinner AND a show. I think perhaps I should drink martinis more often.
Feb 24, 2012
After I retired I went searching for a dog. I knew just what I wanted: female, two to five years old, around thirty-five pounds, short-haired, good with cats and kids. I read the classifieds, and went to two adoption fairs, but most of the dogs were too big for me, or too tiny for Joe.
Then I went to PetsMart, where rescue groups display adoptable pets on Saturdays. The cages were lined up in a wide aisle by the beds and blankets. The dogs were standing and wagging, pacing and whining, lying with heads on paws and ears twitching. Most of the dogs were very big or very old, and then I came to Dixie. She was sitting up straight with eager ears and cocked head, her eyes looking right into mine. She had a glossy black coat with a crooked white blaze down her chest, and her left front leg was missing.
I went straight to the adoption table. Laurie, from Puppy Hill Farm, told me Dixie had arrived just that morning, and they didn’t know much about her. She was a lab cross, seven months old. Her leg had been amputated after a car accident, and the owners had surrendered her to the vet. The vet’s staff described her as “very sweet.”
They gave me a leash, and Dixie and I went for a walk. She didn’t pull very much or very hard, except in the dog food aisle, and she was remarkably calm. Her tail wagged at cats and children, and when people stopped to talk to her, she didn’t jump up on them. When I sat outside on a planter she sat right in front of me and gave me her enthusiastic attention. I told myself that the trauma of the accident and surgery and the month at the vet had matured her, so it wasn’t really like adopting a puppy. I weighed her in the vet’s waiting room, and she was thirty six pounds. Already seven months old – I was sure she wouldn’t grow much bigger. And with only three legs, she would probably be comfortable with my slow walking.
I told Laurie that I did have to check with my husband before bringing home a three-legged dog, but I was sure it would be alright with him. Since I couldn’t reach him on the phone, I hurried home. It was alright with him, though he might have been happy to forego my imitation of the puppy’s eager expression and posture. I raced back to the store.
THE FEMINIST GRANDMA PLAYS PUPPY
Suddenly I had the pre-adoption jitters. Life was simple with only a cat. What was I getting myself into? Though I’d been planning this for so long, it still felt like my usual impulsive decision, guided by passion rather than reason.
But those yearning puppy eyes had me yearning right back. So I filled out the forms, and signed the papers. I promised that if it didn’t work out, I would return Dixie to Puppy Hill Farm rather than take her to the pound. And Laurie helped me pick out what I needed: a crate, leash, food, a chew bone.
I snapped on the new leash and Dixie and I walked to the car. I boosted her up into the front seat, where I had put our old beach quilt. I petted her and talked to her all the way home, and she was very well-behaved. We went for a walk around the neighborhood. I let her explore as she pleased, and for an untrained dog and owner, we did very well, with no pulling or yanking. That night, as she lay on the floor between our recliners, Joe acknowledged that Dixie was a very fine dog.
I have no allegiance to the old Confederacy, and I didn’t want a dog named Dixie, especially a dog who looked a lot like a lab in profile, and a lot like a pitbull from the front, a dog who lunged and barked at pick-up trucks. We tried out a dozen names. Joe rejected Callie; I refused to name her Stumpy. I’ve named my previous dogs after food – Tuna, Oyster, Chilidog – and so I finally settled on Trisket, changing the spelling so I wouldn’t feel like a commercial.
MY DOGS
A week after I got Trisket, we began obedience classes. I had three particular goals for her: to walk on a leash without pulling, to go to her bed (one in each room) when told, and not to jump up on people. She also learned to sit, wait, lie down, and stay. She learned to turn in a circle when told to dance, and ring a bell when she wants to go out. At the command ‘Leave It,’ she will reluctantly refrain from eating food or more disgusting things left by the side of the road, or keep walking at a steady pace, only her head turning, when another dog challenges her.
THE PROUD GRADUATE
The training made her a wonderful companion, and though she grew to fifty pounds, I was happy with my choice. Still, there is one behavior we haven’t been able to train away. All my dogs have been good eaters, gobbling breakfast and dinner the minute the bowl hit the floor. But Trisket is more than a mere enthusiast. She steals food every chance she gets – from the pantry, the table, the trash.
We try to keep Trisket out of the kitchen when we’re not there. We close her in the two front rooms, shutting the sliding door. But her friend Ouzel, like all cats, always wants to be on the other side of a closed door, and with a persistent paw she can inch it open enough to slip through. Trisket follows. Joe finally put a hook and eye on the door. As long as we remember to latch it, the food is safe.
Still, there are three humans in the house. If we are each inattentive once every three weeks, Trisket has unsupervised access to the kitchen once a week. It’s not that we’re stupid, it’s a question of focus. When Amanda was little I would ask her, ‘What is Trisket thinking about?’ and she would answer, ‘Food’. Although I am quite fond of food myself, I occasionally allow my mind to be distracted by other things, such as my afternoon nap or world peace.
When Trisket gets into the pantry she has a great time. She has torn open bags of flour and cornmeal and dragged them to her bed in the living room. We find granola bar wrappers in her crate. Once she ate a huge box of raisins.
Raisins are allegedly toxic, but the things that are supposed to poison dogs don’t seem to affect Trisket. When she was new to our family, she stole a giant chocolate bar from the pantry, and ate the whole thing. I called the vet and told her Trisket had eaten seven ounces of chocolate. The vet advised me to squirt hydrogen peroxide down her throat with a medicine dropper. Trisket was amenable, and after two doses she vomited copious amounts of slimy chocolate foam. In the middle of the pool was an entire stick of butter, unchewed. I’m so sorry I don’t have a photo to share with you.
To keep her out of the garbage, we tried a dog discouragement device with a red plastic flap on a spring, which we would set on top of the trash can. If she tried to get into the trash, it would fly open in her face with a loud snap. But it would also fall off the trash can, leaving it unguarded.
Even more than trash, or ingredients from the pantry, Trisket likes real food from the table. Bob and Arupa came over one night for dinner. Arupa is a vegetarian. I prepared a delicious cheesy vegetable casserole in a big pyrex pan, and set it on the kitchen table to cool. When I returned to the kitchen, Trisket had eaten a third of the dish. We ordered a pizza.
In obedience classes I learned to use rewards to train Trisket – a clicker, a cheery ‘Good dog!’, a kibble. But stealing food provides its own instant reward. Even if I believed punishment worked and were willing to use it, I would have to catch her in the act, and of course I never do. When I come in the room, there is the mess or the empty wrapper, and Trisket runs off to her cage.
Trisket is eight years old now, and sometimes I speculate about what kind of dog we will get when she is gone. Joe has an easy answer: our next dog will be a cat.
Feb 3, 2012
“Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance; everybody thinks it’s true.” (Paul Simon – Train in the Distance)
The whistle calls, “We’re on our way, we’re leaving you behind.” The roar of the wheels on the rails comes closer, louder, more urgent, and then fades away, promising new places, new romance.
I love trains. When I was at boarding school in Andover, Massachusetts, I took two trains home to Ann Arbor – Boston to Albany, Albany to Detroit. It was Christmas, and the Boston train was filled with kids going home from prep schools and colleges. We took over the club car with our guitars, pocket flasks, and bags of sandwiches and cake. From Boston to Albany it was the great traveling Honey Hunt.
At Abbot Academy in the sixties there wasn’t a lot of boyfriend activity. Twice a week we could walk in pairs to town, so if we weren’t too scared of getting caught we could meet a local boyfriend. On Sunday afternoons after church we could have a caller in the parlor. At dances with boys’ prep schools we could pair up with a boyfriend if we had one, or we could love the one we were with. “Love” meant dancing as close as we could get away with, or sneaking off to make out behind the bushes.
So sex was hard to find. Of course there must have been lesbians, but I was never aware of them. Though a few of the teachers were long-time housemates, lesbian love seemed so exotic and unreal. Surely these dowdy spinsters weren’t involved. The teachers were in the same category as parents and other impossibly old people: we shielded our minds from any thoughts of their sex lives.
At the same time, we were obsessed with sex and romance. I had barely been kissed, but I was a virgin with aspirations – the only girl in the tenth grade dorm who admitted she wanted to get laid, the expert in sex who told the others everything I had learned (from books) about free love.
I had two boyfriends: Charles, a lanky senior at a progressive prep school in Vermont, and Toby, a pudgy Harvard sophomore. Until we moved from Cambridge to Ann Arbor I could see them on holidays – Charles and I went to a street dance in Boston, Toby took me to a night club. But in boarding school the point of a boyfriend was letters – after lunch we crowded around the mail slots hoping for something other than a letter from our mother. Both Charles and Toby obliged.
With a love affair that was essentially epistolary, we could have as many boyfriends as we wanted, or could get. So I sat in the club car on the train from Boston, singing harmony and hoping for romance.
Jamie McPherson* went to Groton. He was suave and preppy, with tousled hair and soulful eyes.
JAMIE WAS CUTER
When we learned that we were both going on to Detroit, we were a natural pair. He was joining a friend for the two hour layover in Albany; so we agreed we’d find each other in the club car on the Detroit train.
Union Station in Albany was like a smaller Grand Central: vaulted ceiling, crowds of strangers. No one knew me – I could be whoever I wanted. I loved to try on characters and lives. Once in a restaurant I pretended I was a French student and spoke no English. On a plane I presented myself as a thirty-year-old mother of three; this struck me as glamorous. It was modeled on my sister-in-law Esther, whom I adored.
I bought a ticket for a couchette for $11 and then wandered around with an ice cream cone, people-watching. When no one spoke to me and gave me a chance for role play, I sat in the waiting room with my novel, happy to know I had a date for the night train.
ALBANY UNION STATION
Jamie and I found each other, and went on to the dining car. White tablecloths, stemmed glasses, flowers, and the black night with flashes of light. The waiter was smiling and benevolent, but we didn’t have the nerve to order a drink. Though I wanted a steak, I had a salad. If Jamie saw how I liked to eat, he might think I was fat. Coffee was sophisticated so we ordered two demitasses, but barely drank it, and then made our way through the swaying cars to my couchette.
The couchette was a child’s delight. The seat unfolded into a narrow bed under a big window; the sink unhooked from the wall to cover the toilet. The sleeping car porter had unfolded and made up the bed. We explored all the cunning devices, and then lay on top of the blanket and began to explore each other.
I had a problem. Of course I wanted to go all the way – wasn’t I a proponent of free love? Jamie was as cute as they come, and I could lose my virginity on the night train! But I had my period. I had to tell him before he got past my bra, but then he would think that I thought that he thought…oh dear.
Somehow I told him, and we both agreed we would simply have to stop above the waist. If he had heard of fellatio, he didn’t have the nerve to ask me. So we cuddled and kissed, and for me it was True Love. He’d never seen a bra in full light so I let him examine mine. I showed him how a tampon worked, though I didn’t demonstrate on myself. We tried to sleep for a while, tightly spooned, but the bed was too narrow, and eventually he went back to his coach seat.
I woke in the middle of the night in Canada, warm in my bed, and watched the tall pines rushing past, the snow lit by moonlight. Alone, I could savor every word and kiss and touch, and dream of what would come.
I didn’t see Jamie in the morning, and he was going back to school earlier than I. Maybe there would be a letter when I got back to Abbot. My father met me in Detroit, and we drove to Ann Arbor. I didn’t know a soul there; we had moved from Cambridge just before school started, so I spent a lonely Christmas with my annoying family, waiting for my real life to begin again.
CLUB CAR DINING CAR
After a long three weeks I was on the train again, but this time the club car was full of boring businessmen, so I ordered a Coke and settled in with a novel. A Creep sat down next to me, a balding blonde with a red face and a gray suit. He bought me dinner and two rum and sodas, then followed me to my couchette. I opened the door, slipped inside and closed it securely behind me. I have a clear image of him standing stunned, open-mouthed – but it must be an imaginary memory
I spent the night dreaming, awake and asleep, of Jamie. In the morning I dressed in jeans and a sweater, and went back to the dining car for breakfast The waiter brought me water, offered coffee, and said, “Where’s your friend?” And so completely had I obliterated the Creep from my thoughts, so entirely had my dreams been filled with Jamie, that I said, “Oh, he’s not on this train, he’s traveling tomorrow.”.
Back at school I waited for a letter from him – a week, two weeks – and then it came, on high class cream-colored notepaper, black ink, a small clear script. “I’m glad I met a girl like you.” I puzzled over that line like a biblical scholar, trying to wring from it some pledge. I consulted with my friends – were they words of love or was he calling me a slut? I clung to his closing: Love, Jamie. I wrote him back, pages and pages of witty stories of my Christmas at home, full of scorn for my parents and stupid teachers, warm accounts of after hours revels in the dorm, and probably a bit of poetry.
I never heard from him again. It was a romance as beautiful and brief as a bubble. Charles and Toby’s letters kept coming, and there were more dances, more trains. Jamie was a game, Charles and Toby were games. Men only ceased to be a game when I began raising a son, and realized that these aliens beings were simply human.
I took a train from Jacksonville to New York a few years ago – a nightmare of crying babies, a seat designed to prevent sleep, and a club car full of drunken middle-aged people joking about penis size. Trains aren’t what they used to be, but then, neither am I.
*Fake name of course
Dec 9, 2011
A few weeks ago I wrote about finding a church that I loved, but Amanda rejected. We continued our quest, visiting several, and now I believe we have found the church for us.
Two friends told me that the United Church of Gainesville had excellent children’s programs. I knew they were a progressive church with a social justice orientation. They were the source of our first HOME Van donation nine years ago: in a single service they collected 189 pairs of socks, 189 jars of peanut butter, and $189. They also participate in the Interfaith Hospitality Network, in which member churches take turns providing temporary shelter, food and services to homeless families. So I thought we’d give it a try.
The people mingling outside the church were all white, but in the entrance Amanda was happy to see a girl she knew from kindergarten, and we sat with that family. The sanctuary is a beautiful space of wood and windows. People were welcoming, and the sermon was thought-provoking. The children gathered in front for a story, we sang to everyone who had a birthday that week, and then Amanda went off with the children for Sunday School.
PHOTO FROM TRADITIONALMASS.ORG
As a child I went to an Episcopalian church. To me, church is dogma and ritual and music. The only dogma I’ve found at UCG is a commitment to welcome everyone no matter who they are or what they believe. A part of me asks, So what’s the point? The congregation has created lovely rituals, but they lack the mystery, history and solemnity I loved as a child. There is beautiful music of all sorts – classical, Dixieland, bluegrass -, but the hymnal seems to consist entirely of hymns written since 1960. The lyrics are clunky progressive pieties, and give me the willies, though there are few I would disagree with.
Still, Amanda enjoyed her time with the children, and wanted to return. I found, as I always do in church, that the program of listening, speaking, silence and singing is a calming time that taps into wells of memory and grief I rarely visit.
Of all the churches we visited, Amanda liked this one the best. I had my doubts, but I went to a meeting for prospective members. We sat in a circle to say why we were there, and listened to members and ministers who told us what the church means to them.
I heard the same words over and over: community, commitment to service and social justice, spiritual seeking. I thought desperately, “I don’t want community. I’m drowning in community!” I’ve been in Gainesvillle over thirty years, and have many old friends whom I see too seldom. As for service, my hands are full with the HOME Van and school volunteering, not to mention Amanda. I don’t want any more obligations, or any more guilt. Finally, when it comes to a search for truth and meaning, I am like someone born with no sense of taste. I don’t miss it, and in fact take comfort in the thought that we are tiny specks in an unfeeling, unthinking universe.
HUBBLESITE.ORG/GALLERY/ALBUM/THE_UNIVERSE
But Amanda likes going to this church, and feels she is part of the group. We go almost every Sunday now, and bit by bit I am less of a stranger. I’ve learned a few names, and I’ve signed us up to help host dinner for the homeless families who are staying at the church. I like the thoughtful, honest sermons of the four ministers, and my prickly, judgmental voice is becoming fainter. We may have found our church.
NEXT WEEK: The No Bird
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