last full measure

I breathed heavily, my lungs stinging as I took in a breath and released it in a moist fog. The wind whipped wildly and violently tossed the innocent, light feathery flakes of snow. It was really the only beauty I could see. The ground was brown with upturned earth, and the peaceful snow turned to slush by the constant tread of feet. I blinked to clear my eyelashes from the snowflakes as my buddy next to me cleared his sinuses. His pants were smeared with blood and I wondered if it was his or somebody else's.
Screaming and yelling rose and fell around my ears. I'd grown expectant of the constant noise but not immune. It shattered the quiet of the falling snow and unfailing wind and the occasional whistle called me out of the dream-like trance I could've so easily fallen into.
We were lining up. Good God, not again. I wanted to pray, but did God listen to prayers for such things? Last time we'd been hit so hard, and I couldn't feel my hands anymore. I looked down at them to see them bleeding. I hoped I had all my fingers and purposely counted to make sure. Was there any purpose? Why were we here? My ears burned with the last bit of warm blood before going numb. Then I heard the calls, voices cracking with the strain, and we got into position. I crouched down and saw my enemy opposite me. There he was, just like all the times before. Same watery eyes in the wind, same red face from the cold, same shaking knees from the persistent running, dodging, diving. We were all of us tired. Couldn't we stop? Couldn't we take a break and pick up where we left off?
No, I remembered. We were there for a reason. He wasn't just like me: he was wearing different colors, speaking a different language, calling out different names. He hit us hard, but we hit back. We were there to win, to beat him, to come out victorious in what seemed like a draining, fruitless battle. We were there for home, who listened for reports on the radio and waited to hear from us. They needed this as much as we did. Maybe we did it for them. It hurt, but the pain made the rest afterward more defined. I couldn't imagine the rest, but soon I wouldn't have to. Just get through this night, and I could rest.
More shouts from behind. It was coming. The moment to charge, to push, to try until my hands fell off or my knees broke. I dug my hands into the mud. I waited.
"Blue! 42! Hike!"
Clashing of helmets, deep-chested grunts of men being pounded, the sound of cleats sticking in the cold ground. I sprinted forward, cut to the right, and looked up just in time to see the spiraling ball appear out of a cloud of white snowflakes. I reached out, pulled it close to my chest, and ran. I don't remember sidestepping, stiff-arming, or juking. I don't remember crossing the line or feeling the slaps and pats and punches of victory from my teammates. I remember the feeling of the warm sheets on my aching legs and the sight of the snow falling outside. Outside, where it belonged. And never had a sleep seemed so deserved, saved for those who worked hardest to get it. I knew that it was over, that my hands would heal, that my soreness tomorrow would prove as a pleasantly-aching reminder that we had accomplished and survived and won. It was over. Until next week.

love to keep me warm

Martha Frederick looked down at the stone on her finger. The diamond sparkled in the light from the window when she wiggled her finger up and down. It reminded her of the snowflakes that still stuck on the sleeve of her jacket. They were intricate and cold and cut like chiseled ice.

"Hello, dear,” Dashel McDermott wrapped a black arm sprinkled with snow around Martha’s shoulders as he kissed the top of her head. He smelled distinctly like pine. “Have you been waiting for me long?”

Martha smiled in response as Dashel sat across the table and unwrapped the scarf from around his neck. He placed his hat on the table and draped his jacket across the back of the chair.

“Have you ordered for me?” Dashel asked, rubbing his hands together to warm them.

Martha opened her mouth to answer when the waiter brought over two bowls of potato soup and set them down in front of the couple.

Dashel looked at Martha and smiled charmingly. It was difficult for him to smile any other way. Martha used to want to kiss the dimples that formed when he smiled at her.

“I’m sorry I have to make this quick, Marty,” Dashel said, slurping a spoonful of soup “I have to get back to the lumberyard before the snow gets too deep.”

“Will you be home tonight? I have your birthday present.”

He smiled. “I like when you call it ‘home.’” He reached across the table and grasped her hand. His hand was still cold. “Listen, Marty, why can’t we get married in February? You know we have your parents’ blessing. Is that what’s keeping you back?”

Martha felt the prongs of the ring pushing into the sides of her fingers. She blinked and smiled carefully, shaking her head.

“Then let’s do it. Then I can come ‘home’ and stay home, and you won’t have to be by yourself anymore.”

His words sounded louder in her head than he said them. She’d been alone for 25 years before Dashel came, and he was the only thing keeping her from spending her evenings listening to the radio in her parents’ living room. She had loved his company at first.

“All right.” Her voice was unnaturally permissive.

“All right?” Dashel said. He squeezed her hand and smiled again, then hurriedly ate his soup.

Dashel McDermott was tall. That’s what had attracted Martha at first. Then the way he smiled at her, followed by the way her hand fit into his. He ran a lumber mill outside of town, and he didn’t shave as often as he should have. He was turning thirty the week before Christmas, and his first fiancé had walked out on him three weeks before their wedding. That was seven years ago.

Martha Frederick didn’t love Dashel any more now than she had two years ago when he had first held the door open for her to this very café. She had thought she loved the smell of his jacket and the roughness of his unshaven cheek when he kissed her. She had thought she loved the roughness of his hands and the sound of his voice saying her name. He was the only one who called her “Marty.” He was the only one who called her. He was the only one.

“I have to go,” Dashel said, rewrapping the scarf around his neck and slipping on his jacket. He stood and placed a roll of bills on the table, bending over to be eye-level with Martha. “I’ll see you tonight?”

Dear Dashel. Martha brushed his windblown hair to one side of his forehead. He kissed her soundly and stood up, glancing behind him one last time before walking out the door. Martha watched him out the window as he walked down the sidewalk covered in snow, head bowed against the wind. She looked down at her ring, still shining in the window light, but all the snowflakes on her sleeve had melted into wool-soaked puddles of water.

finals week

Terence, this is stupid stuff
(A.E. Housman)

I felt a funeral in my brain
....
My mind was going numb
(Emily Dickinson)

This picture makes my heart glad:

a wish your heart makes

I think I get more excited over the idea of things than the things themselves. I was just thinking about how much I want to own a bookstore, live in an apartment, own a cat with a literary name, read books while it's snowing outside, drive over to Mom's to bake cookies for whatever church function is happening that night....But what about the things I don't take into account? How much responsibility will it be to own my own bookstore? How much work will it take? Paying rent and bills and cleaning out the kitty litter - maybe I won't even have time to read while it snows (maybe it won't even snow!) and I'll be too tired to bake. My, imagining is fun. But that's exactly what imagining is: thinking about things that aren't real or true or haven't happened or won't happen. But I do like to think about it, even if it is unrealistic. If I didn't have these "unrealistic" dreams about my future, I would feel very much like I was wasting my time in Accounting and Small Business Management and How to Be a Grown-Up 101. (I wish that was a real class.)

Amidst the 72-degree weather here in Kentucky, it's snowing 5 inches in Wisconsin. I want very much to go home for Christmas now. I have a strong urge to read something Nathaniel Hawthorne, but maybe that's another one of those "ideas" that I won't really like once I get a hold of.

Happiness is celebrating the little things - my Dove chocolate holiday wrapper

Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day

Time is an odd thing. I don't know if you ever noticed, but it doesn't stop. Thanksgiving was already two whole weeks ago. We are in the thick of the Christmas season. Lights are strung across mall ceilings and every department store plays "Deck the Halls" behind the voices of bustling Christmas shoppers. Sales! Pushy peddlers! Did you know the Leo diamond is the most beautiful diamond in the world? Or so says the nice gentleman at LeRoy's Jewelers who was either bored or really thought I had $6700 in my red polka-dotted purse to shell out on a sparkly ring (with 6 more cuts than a regular diamond! See how it glitters in the light? Uh, not really. Do you want to try it on? No, thanks. It looks better on! The only way I am putting that ring on is if Mel Gibson is offering it to me on one knee).

Monday I walked around a housing development at 9 o'clock, the cold air filtering through the knit of my gloves. I stopped in front of a house completely covered in white icicle lights as Frank Sinatra began singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" on my iPod. As I watched the house, I imagined cars pulling into the driveway and parking on the street, walking up to the door in knee-length coats and red gloves, a woman opening the front door in an apron and revealing a warm world lit with candles and smelling of gingerbread. Instrumental Christmas music flowed out of the house and voices rose in greeting as desserts were presented to the hostess as a thank-you offering. And as I stood there on the sidewalk, Frank Sinatra singing, "Through the years we all will be together," I thought about the Christmases past, with youth group and church and family. How different it'll be going home to a house I've only known for 4 days and a church who forgets my name.

Time is an odd thing. I never thought Thanksgiving would come, but it has, and is passed. Christmas break seems so far away, but in two weeks I'll be home with the semester behind me. Time keeps going. Sometimes I feel like something will never come or never end, yet somehow I end up on the other side of it looking back at it, wondering how I got through it. I just can't wait to be on the other side of this semester. TWO MORE WEEKS!

Leave the sewin' to the women

I like gender roles. I like that Sally got Billy to check the oil in her car and Henry can do 90 push-ups in a minute when I can’t even bench the bar that’s supposed to hold the weights. I’m not saying that all guys have to wield machine guns and walk across shards of glass a la John McClain in Die Hard, or that all girls must subscribe to Good Housekeeping and idolize Betty Crocker. I for one am always in the mood for a football game, and did you notice that, before Cat Cora, all the Iron Chefs were male? (For once I found myself telling the woman to get out of the kitchen!)

Sometimes I just get tired of the “anything you can do I can do” frame of mind. I think people are getting so caught up in "equality" that they forget how wonderful being different really is. When I’m feeling weak and distraught, I appreciate that the guy I turn to is going to be someone strong that I lean on. Being “sensitive” doesn’t mean he has to cry when I get split ends. Stop telling guys to "get in touch with their emotions." If I wanted someone to cry with me, I'd turn to my girlfriends. I think that sometimes we look for things in the opposite sex that just aren't there, and instead of trying to put them there, let's appreciate what already is there. Instead of dragging your boyfriend to your family reunions and forcing him to watch the latest Nicholas Sparks book-turned-movie with you, appreciate that he can tighten the bolts on your bed frame and hook up the surround sound. I'll turn to my girlfriends if I want to watch a chick-flick or shop for shoes. If I can’t open the pickle jar, I have no problem calling in my brother. If there’s a huge bug on my wall with 80,000 legs and a machete, I’m not against letting my dad handle it. None of this "trying to be just as good as the guy" baloney. Being different doesn't make you lower. "Equality" doesn't mean all can do all. I just don't think genders are celebrated enough for simply being their genders.

I think God created male and female to complement one another, but how can we complement one another if we're constantly trying to be like or "as good" as the other? Be different. Enjoy the differences. Live long and prosper.

Christmas time is here

It's Christmastime. What does that mean? It means jingle bell earrings that sing a silvery song with each step I take and bobble of my head. It means Wilmore Old Fashioned Christmas, walking around town bundled in knitted scarves and drinking hot chocolate provided by vendors selling homemade Christmas gifts. Covering our doors with snowman wrapping paper and cutting snowflakes out of construction paper to hang from the ceiling. Lit angels attached to streetlights and Christmas lights outlining homes like gingerbread houses. It means that soon I'll be going home to be with family again, baking peanut butter cookies and watching the lights on the Christmas tree blur when my eyes water. Dad says it's snowing in Wisconsin right now, and I know the fire will be lit in the living room as the flames reflect off the hardwood floors and the Christmas tree fills the room with pine. I can't wait to go home again, but for now I breathe in my pumpkin spice candle and string my Christmas lights around my room and listen to my 15-year-old Christmas carousel run out of batteries. It's Christmastime! No matter where I am, the mere thought that it's Christmastime makes me feel full, warm, and joyous. My heart sings this song...or maybe this song sings my heart....

Still, still, still,
One can hear the falling snow.
For all is hushed,
The world is sleeping,
Holy Star its vigil keeping.
Still, still, still,
One can hear the falling snow.

Sleep, sleep, sleep,
'Tis the eve of our Saviour's birth.
The night is peaceful all around you,
Close your eyes,
Let sleep surround you.
Sleep, sleep, sleep,
'Tis the eve of our Saviour's birth.

Dream, dream, dream,
Of the joyous day to come.
While guardian angels without number,
Watch you as you sweetly slumber.
Dream, dream, dream,
Of the joyous day to come.

"I've got plenty to be thankful for"

I'm thankful for, among so much else.... cranberry tea and football games and traditions and stone fireplaces and cream cheese frosting on pumpkin cookies and Christmas lights and Christmas music in the kitchen and cinnamon candles and endless turkey leftovers and snow on Thanksgiving Eve and nutmeg-sprinkled eggnog and all four Lethal Weapons for $10 and Christmas movies at night and "homemade" and

my neighbors being home when I locked myself out of the house on Wednesday. As cold as it was running down the street in my pajamas and socks, I enjoyed meeting Peggy and Phil.
("Which house do you live in?" Peggy asked me.
"That blue one down there," I answered.
"Do you live at home? I've never seen you before."
I should have introduced myself as Boo Radley and then stabbed her leg with a pair of scissors.)

and afternoon naps, which I think I'm going to take right now, as Alton Brown makes coconut cake on the Food Network.

Oh there's no place like home for the holidays // for no matter how far away you roam // If you want to be happy in a million ways // for the holidays you can't beat home sweet home

a lasting Marriage

Wednesday I read this verse in Ezekiel: "Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign Lord, and you became mine" (16:8). I looked this verse up in many different translations, and love bits and pieces of different translations:

- "'And when I passed by again, I saw that you were old enough for love. So I wrapped my cloak around you to cover your nakedness and declared my marriage vows.'" (NLT)
- "'When I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love'" (NKJV).
- "'Then I solemnly promised that you would belong to me and that I, the Lord God, would take care of you'" (CEV).
- "'I came by again and saw you, saw that you were ready for love and a lover. I took care of you, dressed you and protected you. I promised you my love and entered the covenant of marriage with you. I, God, the Master, gave my word. You became mine'" (The Message).

I felt like those words were just for me. God sees my heart and its readiness to be loved, and He wants to be my lover! I loved the idea, but I didn't know what to do with it. Then...

Saturday my Intro. to Literature class went to our professor's house to eat pancakes. I could write an entire entry about the Christmas tree in the window, the homemade peach preserves, and the joy with which her son received his guests, but I'll try not to digress. After Mrs. Moulton divulged that she and her husband will be married 49 years this summer, I asked, "What would you say is the secret to a lasting marriage?" Death to oneself, she answered. A deference to one's own pleasures, to serve the other, to make the other happy. Communication is key to that death, to learn what will please the other so as to serve him better. And to be complemented, to be completed by the other. She said, "The parts I struggled to be I could be with Alan," who brought out the side of her she couldn't express without him. How romantic and applicable to my future marriage. Then...

Last night as I read Jeremiah 33:39 ("I will give them singleness of heart and action"), Ezekiel 16:8 came back to me. I thought about this marriage with the Lord and how willing He is to enter into this covenant with me, if only I would reciprocate. And oh, to have singleness of heart! To be fully committed to my Husband and want no other! To have singleness of action and live only to please Him! Then...

I began reading chapter 8 of Deep Unto Deep by Dana Candler and was blown away. Her words ran parallel to my journaling just a few minutes before. On page 125 I read, "Communication with God is the continual expression and experience of mutual affection between God and the human heart." It was then that I realized everything Mrs. Moulton had told me about a lasting earthly marriage applied to my marriage with the Lord Jesus Christ. Death to myself to better serve the Lord, communication with Him, and to be completed and made whole by His strength in my weaknesses! I couldn't believe the way these little gifts had been given to me throughout the week to be brought together in one incredible Christmas Day last night!

What a beautiful revelation. To live in such Truth! And prepare for eternity. Brings a smile to my lips!

Prose and Poetry

This morning has been poetry. Dr. Vincent lost his lecture notes on Hemingway and instead we spent the hour discussing Emily Dickinson. My heart was like a sponge, soaking up the nuggets of gold we dug out of Dickinson's poems until I felt too full to hold anymore.

"Faith" is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see --
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency.

That's the way Dr. Vincent described Emily Dickinson's poems, each one a microscope observing incidences of life like slides. Glimpses into minute details of a world otherwise missed.

But the poetry didn't stop there. I drank hot coffee that cooled as I sat in class and afterward walked down the sidewalk lined with bright yellow and red trees, dropping vibrant leaves onto the ground. Then snowflakes, small and sparse, fell from wintry gray skies. I situated my purple scarf I most likely knitted last autumn while watching a football game, and thought how full and contented I felt. It made me want to write my own "microscopes" to try to detail the beauty of this season of my life.

"'I suppose that's how it looks in prose. But it's very different if you look at it through poetry...and I think it's nicer...to look at it through poetry.'" Anne Shirley, Anne of Avonlea