lend me your ear

How do you know when you’re supposed to be a writer? (How do you know when you’re supposed to be anything?) I have failed so far in trying to pin my interests on a particular vocation. Maybe it is because I love this earth so much that I don’t want to deny any part of it. Maybe that is an optimistic view, and I am really just lazy.

And yet I keep coming back to writing, and its impervious demons: How dare I assume that my words will count, that they will be worthy of even an ear? There is so much noise around us, thousands of messages breeding cacophony. My own voice seems obstructed by the words themselves.

How can I be confident in this journey when I have not yet seen the map, let alone the end? How can I obey when I have not yet heard?

I cannot be sure that my love of words should translate into writing. There are so many ways to love words. And so it seems, more and more each day, that writing is neither an act of confidence nor skill, but faith. And faith is one of those companions that no matter how persistently you push it away, it just keeps turning up in the strangest places. Faith just doesn’t know how to let go.

As always, I am full of questions. In my prouder moments I believe I could be a good mother, teacher, architect, counsellor, nurse, editor, graphic designer, chef. But in William Stafford’s words, the world waits there / thirsting after its names. Who am I to turn away? Adam has passed on his duty, and I feel incredibly small in front of the silence that longs to be turned into song.

a strange and familiar path

When you haven't been a student proper in 2 years (not counting being a student of life and love and all the rest of it), the first day back you feel like a peasant before the table of the noble. Your intellectual hunger growls, lurches from its place of comfortable distraction. The bookstore shelves are a mile high, arching over your frame worn thin by labour and idleness. They offer the choicest morsels of wisdom, and you want them all. Names swirl before your blurry eyes; some names you recognize but many you don't. Names that have been lost in the backs of old journals. Names that have changed some of your friends' lives. Names that have indeed changed your own.

And you want to be let in again, to dig into your pockets and find the key to all this knowledge. You know it's there, beneath coins and crumpled bus tickets. This has been for so long a faraway world, and it is once again present.

I am finding that I still fit into those old muddy boots. The voice of instruction comes like a psalm. I am finding that even though learning can take a thousand forms other than academia, the University has remained a place that expands my vision and energizes my pursuit. I am finding that it feels good to come home, in this, as in so many other ways.

suos, cultores, scientia, coronat

Things have changed just a wee bit as of late. I'm a married woman, I'm a resident alien (and yes that's a technical term), and a student again. To the left you will behold my very own Syracuse University student card. This shiny little card allows me access to books, weights, and vast stores of knowledge. Three of my favourite things.

You may also behold the new labels on my blog entries: Wired Magazine's technology hound, Eugene B. Blognerd, says "these easy to use little titles allow you to search for your favourite posts from the room for rambling archives. All at the click of a mouse!"

(Eyeroll. My husband is now really hoping I get enrolled in a course soon, and have something to do other than pester him with my giddy, nerdish moods.)

The otherwise boring drive down here was full of exciting distractions: Successfully crossing the border as a legal unit, a new travel mug (c/o Caribou coffee), fudge (c/o Illa), Lord of the Rings read by a grandfatherly British man, and catnaps (c/o grandfatherly man). But the award for "ultimate best time on road trip #2 to Syracuse" goes to sheep, who make me laugh more than any other animal. When you pet them, all of their wool and skin moves like a massive turkish rug draped heavily over their backs. It's delightful. (Thanks Todd and Anna-Ruth.)

So the ring on my finger now means a whole lot more than "I'm getting married." It translates to memories of the 29th and before, companionship, committment, shared laughter, and to spousal benefits at a great university. Not to mention having someone to share hummous and tabbouleh at meditteranean restaurants with. As we said to each other this morning: Well, here we are on a new adventure.

box a

I think my posting is about to become somewhat more frequent. Tomorrow we will trek to the border, and cross over as a married couple (those words are still new and strange yet comfortably familiar.) The guards will pull out their pens and push their spectacles up their nose, and we will wait for the go-ahead. Another country awaits, not far from where we are now, but with so much that is other.

Once again my life is packed into little boxes. I spent the last 3 days moving stuff from point A to point B to point C. Those three days seem a write-off for meaningful existence. I was a conveyor belt. I was a shelf-stocker: what has value, what is long past its expiry date. The goodwill box is overflowing once more. It reminds me of how I felt when I started this blog, freshly deposited in a new, pulsing city. But this time it's we, and that is different.

The wedding is over. The event is past. The memories are now starting to take its place. Photos for sensations, videos for moments. Reminiscing for anticipating. Such is the rhythm of our lives.

We move tomorrow. I into the unknown of city and life, he into the known of school and friends. Both of us into the dance of being known and the mystery of yet still being unknown. What do you know?