Sometimes you can get what you want

This is Brink Hall, here on the U of I campus. It houses the English and Math departments and is named for former Moscow resident and author Carol Ryrie Brink. She wrote the childrens' book Caddie Woodlawn, which I love. I also love this building.

Ignore the weird stripy distortions, if you see any in this picture.

It's ancient, U-shaped, ridiculously tall and utterly labyrinthine. Miles of identical corridors about sixteen inches wide run down each level, heated by ferocious radiators. Levels and sub-levels and half-levels with unending staircases all through, also identical.

Today was Vandal Friday. It's a preview day for new and potential students. One year ago, as one of those visitors, I eschewed the official tours and conferences with advisers to make my own way around campus and later, build my own schedule online--not without some keyboard-pounding. But that rainy day I prowled the depths of my new home-to-be, this brick behemoth I loved at first sight. I left my coat in one of the many identical bathrooms on a sub-half-level and almost had to give it up for lost. Escher designed Brink Hall.

When I'd visited every level of every wing, and a few I'm not sure actually exist, I found an exit and stumbled out into the light, wondering how much time had passed and if this was my original dimension. The rain had stopped. Across the lawn was a big square newish building with lots of glass. I walked up the hill and in, to find a cafe, where I bought a bottle of strawberry milk and a bagel. I sat in a sunny window and waited for Seri and Ben to finish their meetings with advisers (they're not averse to doing things the proper way) and while I waited, I listened to the bagel-cafe employees chat about Harry Potter books, and thought to myself, I'd like to work here.

And they're even shaped like life preservers

Every weekday for breakfast I grab a bagel I brought home the day before and eat it as I walk to class. At lunchtime I'm at work, so I fix a bagel sandwich or have soup. And a bagel. Sometimes, like now, for an afternoon snack, I eat....you got it. A bagel. And you know what? I'm not tired of them yet.

We bagelfolk at Einstein's wear black t-shirts with little sayings emblazoned on them like, "Happiness is a warm bagel," or "Donuts, shmonuts--Eat a bagel." I am thoroughly on board with this.

Ah, but what about life beyond lunch, you may ask? Well, it's just ducky. I am grateful for every moment. The week after spring break--which was lovely, spent in Newberg mostly--was an intense round of papers to finish and turn in, and papers received back from professors with results ranging from disappointing (but not surprising) to very pleasing. My poetry prof wants to use my craft analysis of B.H. Fairchild's "The Himalayas" as an example for future classes. :)


Yesterday in our window of sunny weather, Ben and I got his Miata out of hibernation--took off the cover, pulled the top down, wiped off the mildew, gassed her up, opened up the throttle, burned out the gunk and blew out the cobwebs. Sunglasses and bill caps. It was a blast.

Three years ago with the Miata in Yachats, Oregon coast.

Then it snowed. Now that's melted, and because that's a repeated pattern around here, Paradise Creek's running juuuust barely under the bridges. A few inches shy of flood stage. Life is exciting, innit?

 

Forward motion

Five weeks through the semester and we students have gained a rhythm. We know what to expect from our classes, and what our profs expect from us. First semester is behind us, we've readjusted and hit our proverbial stride.

Literal, too. In walking to and from the academic campus from (and to) our little flat here at the outskirts, my stride has become quick, strong, automatic. It's a ten-minute walk one way. Some days I make the round trip twice. Back in Newberg, I loved to walk, but then there was no hurry and there were no hills. (I've learned to mince as well: black ice was a real danger for a couple weeks.)

The other strides I've learned to take happen in my brain. Weeknights, Ben and I generally study from about seven to midnight. A great amount of that time, for me, is spent writing. My fiction writing class is the centerpiece of my attention, my dedication, and by far the greatest eater of my time. Unlike poetry writing class which requires a poem a week, fiction class demands short exercises of original writing three times a week.

I have never been a fiction writer. I have wanted to learn how, read about the process, feared that when I finally gave it a try I'd flop.

But now I have no time to think about that, I simply have to sit down and write something every day. At first I stayed close to home, retold events from my life very slightly altered. Now I've begun to stray more into actual fiction.

I seek out an idea, then sit down and begin to write, and find I don't freeze up, I don't fall down: just like when I step out the door and my legs take off, so does my mind and my fingers on the keyboard. It is a satisfying experience. I suspect it would be thrilling, if I could stop to think about it. And weren't so tired.

When I walk, I find myself mentally describing things I pass. (At least, early in the week. By Fridays I'm half asleep on the sidewalk.) Yesterday, I pulled out my phone and used its voice recording function to narrate a paragraph of story as I strode home. That was immensely fun!

Speaking of noticing and naming details, I wish on my walks I knew where to look for future blooms. Back home I'd be checking the crocus shoots every day, looking for hints of purple, gold and white. Do they grow crocuses here? Hope so. I suspect this high up they bloom late. Like me.

Back home.

Like a guest who won't go home

 The snow is slowly wearing off and lifting away, threadbare on lawns, sunken into roots of trees. Where the plows have pushed it, lumpy heaps linger, dirty laundry piles nobody wants to deal with. Maybe this is the vision of snow some people wrap around themselves when they say, incredibly enough, "I hate snow."

Most everyone here at U of I seems to either love it or hate it. I wonder about those who don't voice their opinions: Is the snow almost miraculous to them still, a child's gleeland? Or do they secretly loathe it, but don't want to admit how grown-up and weary of cold complication they've become? Or, most interestingly, are there those who fear they're losing their wonder? Am I one of them?

I'm a Willamette Valley woman. Every day I step outside and think, "Oh look. It's still here! Huh." It's a new feeling: snow's novelty evaporating. Oh, each morning the white land is a little different. Wavy edgings retreat, melted and refrozen, smashed grass gets unsmothered. On my walk to class, the sunshine blinks off thousands of large ice crystals formed over the remaining snowfields. Wonder changes shape. And I think, with our next snowfall, the wonder and joy will start afresh. I hope so.

Ugh. But necessary. Actually, these guys are totally on the ball.

That's better. From McCall's Winter Carnival. I want to go, don't you?

New Year's Cheer From Fiona and Colleen

,,;'     jjjuuu9  jhj,kkk             n loloi ko-jjkii8990=  

..That was Fiona helping to write my blog post. Heaven knows I must need help getting started; it's been over a month since last time!

School and work are cancelled tomorrow: Snow day!! Big plush drifts all iced over. They look like meringue in the orange sidewalk lamps. 

We all have colds so it's a blessing to get a day to rest up. And to keep up with assigned readings. I'm taking an introductory fiction writing course, intermediate poetry writing, literature of the American West, and history of women in pre-modern Europe. Lots to read, lots to write! I like my profs and expect to learn a great deal.

I walked through the fluffy powder to classes today...pure joy. All the same, Ruby's tales of blossoming trees and t-shirt weather in Pasadena have me a tad wistful, so here's a pic of Fio and me last summer in the Oregon sunshine.

 The Indian Caves at Enchanted Forest are spooky and fun.

Crystal math

Not long ago, I thought flocked Christmas trees were meant to simulate snow on branches. (Just yesterday, to be truthful.) Today I know more precisely: it's hoarfrost, because today it's all around.

These are not Moscow trees, only their cousins somewhere.

Only a little frost lit on the grass this morning, but the trees were thick with it, and a cold fog blurred the town below us as I walked the campus. When I emerged from my math final (triumphant :), the trees were even whiter than before. What do you know? I've seen ice storms settle on trees, glorious and destructive, but not this. Oregon's fogs are cuddly compared to this winter's-breath.
 

Did I mention I like it here?

Bagel stew

Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8 to 3:30 I stand behind a till and take orders at the bagel shop on campus. It's an inviting spot full of windows floor to ceiling. On a day like today the sun's brilliant in there.Sometimes it slants across the till's computer screen and for a while, all we can see is dust, not words. Oh well.

Einstein Bros Bagels is behind all the golden glowy windows, bottom left, in the Commons.

  All day long I look into people's eyes and ask what I can get for them. I write that down and somebody else gets it while I take money and make change, except when it's credit. (People use credit for the tiniest charges, like a coffee refill--$1.05.)

After four days off of work, it can be a bit of a shock to the system to interact with dozens and dozens of people in a day, as attentively yet efficiently as possible, especially since Ben and I tend to cocoon over the weekend. Often we only emerge from the flat to go to church, and Winco after that, then it's back home to hibernate; study, read or goof off online some more.

Sometimes I think of Jesus serving people. Not bagels, but, you know. (Although we did have those episodes where He passed out bread and fish, on the house.) I'm glad that when I say, What can I do for you?, folks take it in context instead of asking me to heal their fractured elbows or suchlike.

Of course, unlike me, He could do that. What I do think I share with Him now, or at least understand better, is the state of feeling saturated in people. Giving  so much focused attention, and in His case, power, can leave you rather a puddle, lapping into other lives which swirl into yours. You take off your apron and stumble off to some mountaintop nook, try to remember who you are and how to wait on the presence of God. Get reshaped as a solo human being, restocked with breath and perspective.

Yah, we're in a Body, we Christians, and I wouldn't want it otherwise. But as distinct parts, joined or jointed...not in a stockpot melting into goulash. :)