Puppers

“Meet me down by the river

Down by the river where the water flows.”

-- Tom Sawyer: A River Adventure, by Kelly G. and David Kisor

--

A river scene:

After shows, I never want to do much of anything. I usually watch TV in my apartment or read or eat before slipping gracelessly into sleep. But after this evening’s show, as I walked across the river to where my car was parked, I decided to switch things up. On this lovely Saturday—breeze, sun, blue sky—I would find a bench on the Kentucky side of the river, put on some sunglasses, and read from the Sedaris book until sundown.

(I’m almost finished with it. The final story is also the longest, a day-by-day account of what appears to be his “How I quit smoking” testimony. As someone who bummed a few in college and believed my smoking habit was just “going to be part of my life” until constantly being around impressionable children prompted me to quit, I feel like I can relate to some of what he says. I started this section this morning, when I stopped in at the Pepper Pod, a greasy-spoon diner in Newport where I had corned-beef hash and eggs for the first time (good choice). Reading about a smoking habit while sitting amongst the tired Saturday-morning crowd (roughly half of whom had a burning cig to go with their eggs and coffee), I thought to myself, This is how one ought to read about someone trying to quit smoking.)

Anyways: So I’m down by the river, high up on the bank, reading on a bench, and suddenly I hear this noise, a jingle not unlike a cell-phone tone or a ragtime ice-cream truck recording. I looked in its direction and saw only what looked like a bright collection of trash down at the bottom of the concrete steps leading to the stony riverfront itself. I eliminated the idea of an ice-cream truck, because it would have to have been in the water, so I assumed the bright garbage on the steps was actually someone’s belongings, maybe a family’s, and that there was a cell phone ringing down there. No one was around though, and I considered going down to answer it. No, I thought, that’s what the people in movies do right before they get involved with the mob. Or psychopaths. Or both.

And then this dog came up to me. A beagle. An energetic beagle, white with brown spots. I put away my book and extended a hand. The dog sniffed it, lifted his leg, and marked my bench as his. “Thank you,” I said, and the dog ran away.

Not two minutes later, the owners of the bright garbage returned: a mom and her three kids, two daughters and a son. I gave them a brief glance and went back to my book, reading about Sedaris trying to learn Japanese.

--

I was interrupted again by an old man’s voice. I didn’t even know what he said, but he was talking to the mom from the top of the steps.

She answered, “Yeah, we love it down here. We come here all the time,” in a thick Kentucky accent. The old man hollered something back, and I tried to ignore their conversation.

Then her son, a pudgy kid maybe ten years old in a gray shirt and shades, tapped my shoulder. I had no idea where this child had come from, so I was a little startled. “Sorry, sir,” he said, in his own version of his mother’s drawl. “Can you help me get my dog? He ran ’crost the street, and I cain’t catch him. He’s too fast.”

Though I generally keep to myself, whenever these sorts of things happen I try never to say no, especially to a kid. Saying yes is really saying, “Yes, I’ll join your quest.” It’s saying that you could use an adventure.

“Sure,” I said, dog-earing my page and tucking the book into my armpit. “Let’s get him.”

--

Across the street that runs by the river in Covington there is a small park filled with gallant statues of local heroes I’ve never heard of. I sometimes marvel that Kentuckians identify more strongly with their history than do Ohioans. Maybe that’s inaccurate if you consider different cities around the states, but at least around here, I think it’s true. Case in point, this morning in the diner, I observed a black busboy, maybe fifty years old, with his sleeves rolled up to mid-bicep, hat cocked like they wore them in 1950s war movies. He topped off my coffee a few times, every time calling me “young suh,” addressing the old smarmy waitresses as “ma’am” and “Miss Shirley ma’am.” I got the feeling, looking around at hammy-armed men in suspenders and flannel and webbed baseball caps, that this was basically how the diner crowd must have looked all those decades ago when it first opened. I don’t know how long the park by the river has been there, but I get the sense that locals know the stories of those statues. At the base of one of the bronze figures, there was the beagle, marking it as his own.

“Puppers!” squealed the boy in excitement. His sister had joined him; their mom was nowhere in sight. “He’s peeing.”

--

We jogged across the street and Puppers saw us. It sent him into a tizzy, and he started doing that sideways shuffle that dogs do when they are too excited to do anything else. This particular park is raised from the sidewalk level and surrounded by a three-foot stone wall with small stairways in each side. I knew a beagle this size would never chance jumping down a wall but wouldn’t think twice about traipsing down some steps, so I told the kids, “You take that staircase, I’ll take this one.” And we split up.

Catching Puppers took a while. He kept shuffling and turning suddenly. Halfway through, the dog realized I was a stranger, and interpreted all of my movements as acts of aggression towards his little masters. He began barking, and this in turn started the kids barking:

“Puppers! No! Puppers! No!”

“He thinks I’m trying to hurt you,” I called to them.

“No,” said the boy, who had stuffed his shades in his pocket. “He doesn’t like sunglasses.”

“Oh,” I said, as if this was the most natural thing in the world, as if the dog was autistic and had an irrational fear of anything with its eyes covered, “that makes sense.” I took them off and put them in my pocket as well. I wondered if the boy had been wearing his shades when Puppers took off in the first place.

Finally, the boy’s sister tackled the beagle and got two fingers around the collar. “YES!” the boy screamed, and they began half-dragging, half-carrying the dog back to the riverfront. I started to follow, but Puppers started barking, so the boy told me to stop following them. In that moment, I wondered whether the mother would be upset that her kids had approached a total stranger—someone sitting on a bench wearing sunglasses—without her approval. I wondered whether I looked like a sicko in my gray jacket and old white khakis. Sickos are supposed to look old, right?

--

I got back to my bench just as the mom was gathering her brood, Puppers et al., and leading them to the car. I waved, trying to look unassuming and friendly—just a good-natured young adult who had helped get her dog back. Instead of returning the wave, she hissed at her kids, “Why’d you chase him? He would’ve come right bayuck.”

--

I hadn’t resumed reading for more than a minute when another voice interrupted me. “Didja see thayut feeyish?”

I looked down at the river (What now?) and saw a middle-aged man waving his arms and pointing. Around his feet darted Puppers. (The father?) “What?” I shouted back. The wind was stronger now, the late-day wind that comes from nowhere. You could actually see not just the waves in the river, but the gusts of wind creating the waves.

“Thayut FEEyish,” he repeated. “Theyur. It’s a cayutfish.”

“No,” I said.

So he took a plastic bag from his pocket (Who carries plastic bags in their pocket? Well, I guess for the dog…) and, using it as a glove, bent down and picked up what looked like a white piece of driftwood. But when it was lifted up it bent in that lazy, serpentine look of a dead fish. “This thing weighs thirty payounds!”

“Wow!” I said. The thing was huge and sickly, a four-foot gym sock with gills. Joking, I shouted, “You gonna take that home?” The man looked like just the sort of person who might.

“You kiddin me? I wouldn’t take any feeyish that come from this river. I just hope Cosmo doesn’t see it.” And he pointed to Puppers, who was fixed on what was in his owner-man’s hand.

Around this time, Puppers marked my bench again. I looked at the dog near my leg, then at the one staring at the dead fish, and realized they were two different dogs. Cosmo, who turned out to be a smaller version of Puppers, belonged to the man holding the catfish at arm’s length.

--

Eventually, Cosmo and Puppers discovered each other, as did their families. I remarked a few times how closely they resembled each other, both white with brown spots, and the mother and the catfish guy just nodded in the same way you’d nod if someone told you tires are made of rubber: patronizingly acknowledging a factual statement from a stupid person. Cosmo’s owner-man had scrambled up the bank (ignoring the concrete steps) to chase after his dog, and Puppers’ family congregated on the bench beside mine. Out of nowhere, a photographer-lady appeared among us and said to her companion, “What do you think is making that light on the water?”

She meant a large reflection spot, halfway between us and Cincinnati, that looked about the size of a Winnebago. She snapped pictures of the spot and didn’t bother taking any pictures of the two dogs sniffing each other’s penises ten feet from her. She and her partner, who may also have been a photographer, moved on. Do photographers have apprentices?

Meanwhile, everyone was getting to know each other, including the dogs. Both were males, so they wasted no time figuring out which was the Akela wolf, the alpha dog.

--

When my sisters and I were kids, my parents decided we were mature enough to handle a dog in the house. Impulsively, they ended up buying two: a pair of yellow lab-spitz-chow mutts who were just so darned cute as they slipped and skidded around the tile floor of the pet store. We went from “being ready to get a dog” to “being owners of two brother dogs” in less than three hours. We named them Lucky and Prince, and, with little practical knowledge of how to raise puppies, we started doing just that.

Long story short, we botched the job. Badly. We delayed neutering them, not wanting to pay for such a expensive and sad procedure, so when they hit adolescence they tore into the furniture—and each other. Bloody snouts were common, and soon so were bloody eyes and gums and paws. I remember a few nights when we all became so terrified of our pets that we chained them up in the backyard to stakes set at opposite corners. When they got strong enough to pull out their own stakes, and when the alpha-dog contest had reached an almost deadly climax, and when the task of separating the brothers became as intense as trying to end a gang feud, my parents decided we should give them to a shelter. The one condition was that they be given to separate owners. The day we left them in a white room filled with cages is one I will never forget.

--

The owners of Cosmo and Puppers, I’m sad to say, also know very little about dogs. At one point, Puppers’ owner-lady said she learned from some Animal Planet show that “the magic word for dogs is ‘At.’ You just say that, and it clicks for them.” Then, trying to show the magic word’s effectiveness, she tried to stop the alpha-dog contest by chanting “At! At! At!”

Puppers, the bigger of the two by far, responded by slamming Cosmo’s head into the cobblestone sidewalk.

“Aw, lettum go,” said Cosmo’s owner-man, lighting a cigarette and reclining on the bank.

“They’re havin fun.”

“They’re figuring out who’s the dominant male,” I offered. I was ignored.

--

“I named Cosmo Cosmo because he came from a farm, and now he leeyuves in the city,” said the owner-man. “Short fer Cosmopolitan.”

“We named Puppers Puppers because it’s so close to puppy.”

“I sometimes call Cosmo ‘Ugly Belly,’ because—see?” He grabbed the puppy and held him aloft like Simba, so we could see the speckled belly above the speckled pecker. “He used to be called ‘Chubby’ before that.”

“Chubby?” the boy asked.

“That’s right. I got him from a farm where he was the fattest one of about fifty.” Thinking that Cosmo didn’t look fat at all, and that this guy looked like he had also originated on a farm overrun with dogs, I laughed.

The owner-man and the owner-woman looked at me suspiciously. The boy busied himself by throwing dead leaves into the air, and one of them flew right into my mouth. I coughed.

Finally, the owner-man resumed, “What’s his bloodline?” They talked about bloodlines and pedigrees, sounding a lot like dog show hosts, then suddenly the man asked, “How much you pay for him?”

“A few hundred. You?”

“Twelve-fifty.”

“Wow,” she said. “That’s a lot of money for a beagle.” She started to ask how old Cosmo was, but the man stopped her.

“No,” he said. “Twelve dollars, fifty cents.”

--

A teenage couple walking by the river had come upon the catfish. The girl, in one of those rebellious purple shirts and a female emo haircut, picked up a stick and started poking it. The stomach opened and we heard them both say, “Ew!”

“Didja see that feeyush?” Cosmo’s owner-man ran back down the bank, grabbed the same plastic bag, and lifted the dead catfish again. Gray stuff plopped out of its belly. “It’s thirty payounds!” This scandalized the emo couple, who wrapped their arms around each other and walked away.

--

“He’s a drunk,” said the mother, shaking her head. It took me a moment to figure out she was talking to me.

“Really?” I said, watching the man wiggle the catfish.

“He comes down here all the time, yeah. He’s definitely had a few.” As I contemplated why the town drunk would want to get a dog, even a twelve-fifty dog, the mother stood. “Kids, come on. We gotta go home.”

“It was nice meeting you all,” I said. “And Puppers.”

“Mm-hm,” she said, and they went across the street.

--

I didn’t finish the book; still haven’t. Maybe I’ll do that later. Only fifty pages to go.

No matter how good writers get, people will always be more interesting than books. It’s strikes me now that I spend so much time reading in places where you’re most likely to meet the most fascinating, weird, fun people: coffee shops, diners, libraries, parks, riversides. I think I know why I do it, though.

I think it might be the same reason the town drunk got himself a dog.

Leo

"The same gentleness can be seen in the story of [Prince Vladimir's] two sons, Boris and Gleb. On Vladimir's death in 1015, their elder brother Svyatopolk attempted to seize their principalities. Taking literally the commands of the Gospel, they offered no resistance, although they could easily have done so; and each in turn was murdered by Svyatopolk's emissaries. If any blood were to be shed, Boris and Gleb preferred that it should be their own. Although they were not martyrs for the faith, but victims in a political quarrel, they were both canonized, being given the special title of 'Passion Bearers': it was felt that by their innocent and voluntary suffering they had shared in the Passion of Christ. Russians have always laid great emphasis on the place of suffering in the Christian life...

"Boris and Gleb followed Christ in his sacrificial death; Theodosius followed Christ in his life of poverty and voluntary 'self-emptying' (kenosis)....The same ideal of kenotic humility is seen in others, for example, Bishop Luke of Vladimir (died 1185) who, in the words of the Vladimir Chronicle, 'bore upon himself the humiliation of Christ, not having a city here but seeking a future one.' It is an ideal found often in Russian folklore, and in writers such as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky."

-- Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church


--

That's where my bookmark sits today.

I like the idea of kenosis, the emptying of self. I picture a barrel of pitch turned sideways, the black gunk gushing out, disappearing before it touches the ground. It is righted and in flows the purest water, washing away the remaining pitch and filling the barrel to brimming.

Also, apropos to the last post: reading The Orthodox Church and Brothers K just synced up.

--

A few years ago on my birthday, I remember my friend Zach gave me a collection of Tolstoy's short stories. I started reading some of them that night but gave up within a few days. I felt like I didn't "get" Tolstoy the same way I felt I "got" Dostoyevsky.

(As an aside, I never know how to spell Fyodor's surname--Y's and I's seem interchangeable.)

In another collection of short stories, there's a Tolstoy three-page yarn about a monk standing on the deck of a ship. He has a vision of an angel (or maybe it's the Virgin) floating across the sea towards him, and then the story--abruptly, I thought at the time--ends. What? That's it? Something must be going on; Leo wouldn't write a story for no reason, right? I reread the story, scouring it for hints, and concluded that either the translator missed the point or Tolstoy was just too obtuse for me.

Whereas with Dostoyevsky, I feel like we're in on the same joke, and maybe I've heard the joke before and this is just the Russian version. Like the author notices the same stuff I would notice in those situations.

But after reading a little more about Orthodoxy--and specifically, about Russian Orthodoxy--my mind keeps turning to Tolstoy. I really should give it another shot.

--

As another aside, anyone interested at all in writing, Russia or love should see The Last Station. You just should.

Also: Kerry Condon is hot.

--

It's funny. In the week after I attended Pascha services, I felt disappointed in the Orthodox Church, like it had let me down. I had expected too much of this ancient church, a human and earthly institution. Being from an evangelical and pentecostal background, I was fascinated by the beauty but didn't feel what I had hoped to feel. My hairs didn't tingle for three hours straight; I yawned when the person beside me yawned; no divine light shattered the roof.

But you keep going, don't you, when something that interests you disappoints you. So I've been downloading podcasts, continuing my reading, and just yesterday, I cracked open The Orthodox Study Bible, whose appendix essays alone have been worth $20. Once again, my desire to learn is renewed. I'm ready to go to Liturgy again.

This helped a lot, too. Anyone who is interested in Orthodoxy, Dr. Jackson (Hillsdale), or a brilliant rereading of Adam and Eve, should listen to this. It's Jackson's analysis of the true meaning of the Genesis 1-3, referred to me by Nick T.

--

Probably by accident, and perhaps significantly so, the bookmark I've been using for The Orthodox Church is the retail tag from a pair of pants I recently bought at Wal-Mart. The brand? Faded Glory.

And in The Brothers Karamazov, the bookmark is a ticket stub from a play I saw two months ago, called The Fall from Heaven.


Signs and wonders.

Engulfed

"Me too," her husband said. "It's cold as shit in here."

Shit is the tofu of cursing and can be molded to whichever condition the speaker desires. Hot as shit. Windy as shit. I myself was confounded as shit...

-- David Sedaris, in "Town and Country," When You Are Engulfed in Flames

--

Flames will be my first Sedaris book. It's the light to balance out the heavy (see "Currently Reading" list on right). I suppose when you're reading Dostoevski and theology, it's okay to dip into lighter material for a weekend. Which is exactly what I did: After two days of reading Flames, I'm almost finished. Usually it takes me almost a month to read a 300+ page book, but generally the material is denser, more "literary" than a collection of personal essays about middle life.

It maybe takes me so long to read books because I plow through several at once. This keeps me from getting bored with just one, and thus decreases the probability that I will decide it's not worth finishing right now, which is what I've done several times with Brothers K. It's not that I decide the book isn't worth reading, just that it's not a good fit for my life right now. I'm too busy. I'm too young.

I admire people who can focus on a single book at a time. For the weeks they are making it through a tome, your mental image of them always has them holding, carrying, or reading that book. You begin to associate that person with that particular book. When you start reading it yourself, you occasionally wonder if you're seeing the same things the other person saw, if later you can talk with them about that moment in chapter five or the description in chapter nine.

And while I admire them, I wonder too: Are they reading one book at a time because that's all they can handle, or by choice?

And the question flips on itself: If I spent all my reading time on one book at a time, could I get more out of each?

--

Maybe.

I remember moments in college when I would hear the same things in disparate courses (say, English and political economy). It made me wonder if the professors sat in the faculty lounge, sipping tea, discussing what topics they would all try to cover that day.

"I move we mention Virgil's description of the sacking of Troy."

"Seconded."

"Yes, but what specifically?"

"How about we mention the image of a man carrying his father on his back and being led by his son? That it was a metaphor for the nature of history itself?"

"Splendid!"

"All in favor--?"

"Aye!"

Or something like that. I only bring it up because a similar thing happens when you read more than one book at a time. Just recently, reading Mere Christianity and The Orthodox Church simultaneously made for many sync-ups.

It's not quite like seeing two sides of the same coin. It's more like reaching into two pants pockets and finding two-dollar bills in each.

--

Multi-reading (a cheap combo of multi-tasking and reading) also allows me to link moods or events in my life with a number of books. After church on a beautiful afternoon like yesterday's, I'm more likely to walk to the river and read something theological and transporting--The Orthodox Church. While watching the Cardinals lose to the Brewers, I might spend commercials breezing through Flames. And when it's time for bed, I'll pretentiously grab a candle and read Brothers Karamazov by flame light.

Another thought occurs to me: this is how I read in college. Different chunks from different works, at random times throughout a day, every day. This is how I trained my mind to read.

--

To an extent, I think it's how I write, too. (At least, how I write in a blog.) Random clippings, strewn about without much editing or post-thought. Generally, I'll have an idea before I start typing, but from there, it sort of meanders. Even when I try to keep it focused on a single topic, relatively meaningless details from life creep in, assuming deeper meaning when there's not much there, like kids stealing focus on stage. It's the damming of the stream of consciousness, creating a reservoir of silly, small memories.

--

Once, in a summer stock vocal rehearsal, the music director's brother (our lead in the show) said he could turn any ordinary object into a voice lesson. Someone took out a plastic spoon and handed it to him. He studied the spoon for no more than a second, then held it out at arm's length, the concave facing away. "Aim your voice like it's a taught fishing line," he said. "Try to hook it onto the edge of the spoon, and with your hand pull your voice from your body. Imagine the line getting tenser and tenser as breath leaves your lungs. This is the proper way to sing."

We clapped and he shrugged. "Anything can be turned into a lesson."

I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but that idea has stuck with me. You can turn anything into a metaphor just by thinking about it as one. As one beloved professor pointed out often, you can verb anything in English--even the noun "verb."

--

I'm showing my apartment today. Some guys from next door are thinking about shifting everything over thirty feet. I think they also live on the third floor of their building.

So yesterday was not a day of rest. Lots of cleaning, folding of laundry, discovery of junk mail. Threw away a dead potted plant that was a gift from the last show (I'm bad with plants). Scrubbed the stove top. I'm going back soon to vacuum, sweep, dust, and make that crowded closet resemble "presentable."

Also: Visiting my sisters in Seattle. Just bought the ticket a few days ago.

And: Kix doesn't taste the way it used to. When you snack on them and they drop, they roll like crazy.

Bigness

"In the last resort, what we want to know is not, what would this man or that man, or this or that Church, have of us, but what Jesus Christ himself wants of us.... We have a strange feeling that if Jesus himself--Jesus alone with his Word--could come into our midst at sermon time, we should find quite a different set of men hearing the Word, and quite a different set rejecting it."

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his Introduction to The Cost of Discipleship

--

Today's a big day.

Just before I leave the office, I will lay envelopes on the desks of the Executive Producer and the Artistic Director. In these envelopes will be two letters, neatly folded and cleanly written, which announce my intent to leave my job in a few months.

They wanted to know several months in advance, so I'm letting them know now. Most organizations would only want two weeks to four. This one needs over four months.

It's all for the best. Deadlines force decisions; and decisions, decisiveness. Without such an ultimatum, I may well have shied away from making my plans until well into the summer, when it would have been too late--or too painful--to make such an announcement.

At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

--

And today comes after a great high: escorting my co-worker Jen S. to home plate in the Great American Ballpark, where she sang the National Anthem for the Cincinnati Reds' Opening Night game. (St. Louis won 6-3 and I was very happy.)

We got Reds-themed "fleecies" (they are legally not allowed to call them "Snuggies") for being among the first 21,000 fans to show up. I found I felt more comfortable walking around in it if I wore it backwards, with the opening in front. It felt more like a cloak, less like a curtain.

--

So the week has been a big one, too: Parade, board lunch w/ staff, Reds Opening Night, and today, Letter Day.

Growing up, I heard church folk talk a lot about "red-letter days." The idea was to live daily according to the words of Christ, which of course are widely printed in red. As a friend from high school recently pointed out, much of what Christ said (specifically in Matthew 18) is tough biscuits.

In accounting, to be "in the red" means to be in debt. I think that's a good way to think about it, too.

--

Until the end of August, I'll still have this desk and the retro file trays and the guitar propped against the painting (neither of which are mine) and the cubicle and the blank Rolodex and workshops and classes and students and experiences and people to call and emails to read and things to do and money to save. I'll still have a car and a car payment. I'll still have a love for theatre, too.

When I leave, I'll go to Nebraska. A handful of old friends will hear that I became one of those Heartland kids who went away to college, went away to act, and then retreated to the plains. They won't hear that the battle was only within. They'll never know that the retreat was only a regrouping.

I'm fine with that. What I will not do is become one of those Heartland kids who becomes a Heartland adult who becomes a Heartland heehaw before 30. I am 23. I have a degree. I will not work part-time just to get by, puddle-hopping from job to job, and I certainly won't let my spirits die in a slow burn. I am not moving back to Nebraska; I am moving away from Cincinnati.

--

So...where will I be by, say, October?

Maybe military, perhaps back in school. Definitely in a different venue. The thing is not just to leave but to leave with grace, with dignity. Fortitude, too. Because "Fate doesn't hang on a wrong or right choice / Fortune depends on the tone of your voice."

In other words: Not the words, but the ink. Not the ink, but the page. Not the page, but the book. Not books but libraries, not libraries but knowledge. And all that.

Because this change, however big, is small. Hardly worth reading about, or writing about.

--

Vonnegut was right: We know too little to think our lives are such big deals.

So was Auden.

I knew it was gonna be a big year, though.

Parades

"Ah, brother, but a Balaam's ass like that thinks and thinks, and the devil knows where he gets to."

"He's storing up ideas," said Ivan, smiling.

"You see, I know he can't bear me, nor any one else, even you, though you fancy that he has a high opinion of you...But he doesn't steal, that's one thing, and he's not a gossip, he holds his tongue, and doesn't wash our dirty linen in public. He makes capital fish pasties too. But, damn him, is he worth talking about so much?"

"Of course he isn't."

"And as for the ideas he may be hatching, the Russian peasant, generally speaking, needs thrashing. That I've always maintained. Our peasants are swindlers, and don't deserve to be pitied, and it's a good thing they're flogged sometimes."

-- Dostoevski, in The Brothers Karamazov


--

This morning, I was on a float.

It was in the Opening Day Parade for the Cincinnati Reds, at slot #30. Last year, we got in at #130, so to move forward in the lineup a hundred spaces is something to celebrate in itself. When we finished our run, there was still a long line of decorated vehicles brimming with impatient people; they had yet to enter the parade proper. Must've sucked.

We rode back to the parade's source in the float, towed behind a truck, and enjoyed flying through downtown in the sunlight and the breeze. Floating on a float. All that was missing was a root beer float.

The thought occurred to me, as I stood watching crowds and trucks and signs in the parking lot that had been set aside as a staging area, that parades are very, very weird. In some ways, it's just a flea market on floats. (Or a flea circus on wheels.)

--

Waving one's arms for an hour will do several things. First, you realize how monotonous waving is. You try to wave in different ways--floating your hand, stretching your arms way above your head and flicking your wrist, fast waves to excite children, fist-pumps that burst into jazz hands, pointing at random strangers--to break the monotony and to give your muscles something else to do. Next, you start to think about working your triceps a little more; they seem a little flabby. You try to tense up those muscles, which turns the gesture of waving into an almost robotic movement, and your expression changes from one of joy (How sweet it is being on a float!) to one of concentration (Perhaps that guy just wet his pants). A third result is you start imitating unique waves returned to you from the crowd. A fourth is making eye contact in an effort to get more people to wave back. The game changes from physical challenge to emotional. You start feeling awkward or even offended when people sitting in their patriotic lawn chairs don't wave back.

The trick: Wave at the kids who are sitting on the sidewalk's edge. They're there to wave.

--

Was a part of a different kind of parade--in fact, a procession--at the Pascha service on Holy Saturday night. The procession occurred about two-thirds of the way through the four-hour ritual: we all had lit candles; the night was about as still and amazing as you could hope; we chanted the ancient melody--"Christ has risen from the dead, trampling down death by death / And upon those in the tombs bestowing life"--as the priest banged on the church's front doors, symbolizing the group of women who went to Christ's tomb to anoint his body, only to find He had risen; children held their candles closely and parents held them loosely and the elderly held them tenderly; I met a man named Nolan who gave me an idea of what to expect later in the night; grateful for the opportunity to celebrate Easter in a ritualized, mystical way, I found myself lost and lost myself in the finding (if that makes any sense). It was beautiful.

I also found myself manipulating the melted candle wax: a condition related to pyromania, I think.

After, I kissed the cross and the priest and received the blessed red egg. The feast proceeded; their fast had ended. At 4:00 in the morning, I finally went home, exhausted.

--

Could've done without the rest of today. Back at the office, I found out I had missed a workshop at a museum on Saturday, around the time I was prepping myself for an eastern overnight worship fest. I hate missing workshops, and part of the reason I hate it is that I accidentally do it so often. I think it's common to hate those sins and personal failings that are more frequent. If we weren't plagued, we wouldn't hate the plague.

My deadline approaches. I have to figure out my summer plans (parents renewing their vows, siblings meeting up in Seattle, me teaching at two summer camps for two theatres) as well as my future with this company, and I have to get it all down on paper by Thursday.

I wish life had a pause button. Maybe the closest you can get is to write it down, relive it for some moments, make sense of it if you can, and click on "Publish Post." Not necessarily in that order.

Pascha

"--which there was no need to have told you, by the way. And I fancy that in telling you about my inner conflict I have laid it on rather thick to glorify myself."

-- Mitya, in Fyodor Dostoevski's The Brothers Karamazov

--

Heels up, flung headlong. Attempting a contemplative weekend instead of an active one, I've attended (so far) two Pascha services at Christ the Savior - Holy Spirit Orthodox Church. It has been, to say the very least, interesting and informative. You can learn a lot about any religion just by attending a service, and as several sources have told me, that's the only real way to become acquainted with Christian Orthodoxy.

I've been learning about Orthodoxy for years. Now, I'm trying to learn it, itself.

--

I told my mom as much. "Make sure," she told me over the phone, "that you're not doing this for your friends. Make sure you're doing it because you really feel it's the right thing for you."

That made me think. Sure, some friends of mine recently decided to join the Orthodox Church. Sure, one of my closest professors is Orthodox. But am I?

The word "Orthodox," of course, means "right worship" or "right belief." Aside from implications that this is the right way for a Christian to worship and believe, I still have to ask whether it's "right for me." Or maybe not right--but suitable? ideal? comfortable?

That's what worries me, that confusion of "feeling something is right" and merely "feeling comfortable."

And couldn't one argue that it has nothing to do with something being "right for you" or "right for me," anyway? That it ought to be something "right for God"?

--

Really, it's too early to tell, anyway. Two services on the most holy weekend in the year are not going to give me a very representative view. Still, now is better than later; as this time of year is cumulative for Orthodox, one could argue that this is the best time of year to observe their services--in the same way that many Protestants are on their best behavior at Christmas.

--

As a personal act of faith, and with vague intentions of "preparing" myself for an Eastern Easter, I fasted for all of Good Friday (or "Holy and Great Friday," as Orthodox call it) from use of all unnecessary electricity, all food and all drink besides water. It was hard.

My rationale was partially based on Orthodox practice--I read somewhere that there is a "strict fast" to mourn the physical death of Christ the Man--and something I heard on the radio about the Jewish Sabbath. A woman on the radio spoke about "trying not to have any affect on the world" for at least one day of the week. That's where the electricity thing came in. Keeping my phone off for 24 hours was a lot harder than I like to admit.

The eighteenth hour (6pm) of my fast was the most difficult. After I had seen the daylong fast through, I carbed up on two dinner rolls and some hummus. Too tired (a combo of actual crashing and a false sense of exhaustion) to do anything else, I slept for ten solid hours after.

--

For those interested in reading about Orthodox services, check out some books and these sites:

http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/
http://www.frederica.com/12-things/
http://www.christthesavioroca.org/about_orthodoxy.html

For those interested in Orthodoxy itself--if you're wondering, "Could I eventually become Orthodox?"--don't waste too much time reading about it. That was my mistake, admittedly. I read a lot about the beauty of the liturgy songs and the meditative experience and ancient theology, that got so caught up in "clouds" and anything earthly, anything less than a veritable cloud, seemed, well, lower than what it ought to be. Reading about it idealized the Church in my mind, and I found myself a tad disappointed (rather than fascinated) to see ordinary folks standing around me.

--

It wasn't until after Matins last night, after I'd made a quick run to the grocery store and read a bit from The Brothers K, that I realized what had happened in those services. As much as I was just trying to observe what was going on--when people crossed themselves, which icons were venerated and when, etc.--I had also stood and spent long hours in strict contemplation. After a few moments of self-consciousness, all consciousness of myself--my life's petty worries, my desires, my needs--disappeared.

As my professor put it, "The West says, 'Don't just stand there; do something.' The East says, 'Don't just do something; stand there.'"

I can't wait to see if it happens again tonight.

Keyed

"I'd stop this world
If I could find the key."


-- Steven Curtis Chapman, "The King of the Jungle"


--


Yesterday, a series of situations that brought about a Situation--not an Emergency. A parable (maybe), but too long of a story to relate here. I'll summarize the intro and only tell the best part:


It was a stressful morning, so I decided to go for a run in the afternoon. I lost my apartment keys, which I always keep in a pocket, somewhere along the route, and after retracing all my steps (walking about four miles), I found no key. I was locked out of my apartment, where I had left my car keys, cell phone, and wallet.


The first step was to call someone who could get me in touch with my landlord, who could get me in touch with the property manager, who lives next door. Because I looked ridiculous in my green Okoboji hoodie, Under Armour bottoms, and shorts, I decided to try for a phone at the local library, where everyone looks ridiculous. It's almost always filled with homeless folks and bizarre Kentuckians.


The reference librarian was skeptical but let me make a few calls, and once I'd gotten the numbers I needed and arranged for a co-worker to pick me up, I dicked around the library, read the first chapter of a random book, and then went to wait outside.


I realized once I was outside again that I hadn't stretched after my long run and longer walk, so among the thugs and bums that hang out by the door, I started stretching. It was awkward, and I felt stupid. At one point, two black kids on scooters came up to me and tried to read my hoodie.


"Ok-a-bah-jee?"


"It's Okoboji," I said, sighing. "It's a lake in Iowa."


--


I sat on the concrete steps and waited for my ride. And here might be the best part of the story:


I hadn't been sitting for more than a minute when I felt something hit the side of my head. I recoiled just in time to see a cigarette butt flying away from my face. Then I heard a woman's voice say, "Oh, honey, I'm sorry!" It was some fat white woman who had finished her smoke and flicked it away, seeing in the corner of her eye that it had hit someone. "It's okay," I said, and started laughing.


I had been hit in the head by a flying cigarette butt.


This story ends happily, with me getting a ride to my apartment, getting in touch with my landlady and property manager, getting spare keys (which I will get copied later today), and getting on with life.


And at 4:00pm, I finally had breakfast.


--


And now, the things I learned.


1.) From now on, whenever I run, I'm leaving my keys in my mailbox, under a mat, on the tire of my car, wherever. I'm never bringing my keys with me again.


2.) You don't realize how much trash there is on the sidewalk until you are looking for something on it. A lot of the trash is small, about the size and shape of a key. It's very hard to find something small like that when there's so much trash around. There's also a lot more trash as you get closer to the river, where the richer people live; not sure why that is, and maybe it has more to do with the number of people who walk through that part of town than with the amount of money people make there. But it's interesting.


3.) You also don't realize how easy it might be to break into your apartment until you are considering doing it yourself. Climbing an iron gate isn't that difficult, and scaling a fire-escape is conspicuous but doable. If raccoons can do it, chances are humans can, too.


4.) You're never in control of life. You only think you are, and you gather possessions and luxuries that give you a false sense of security. It's only when you're separated from things like keys, phones and money that you realize just how fine the line is between daily routine and a day of chaos and worry.


5.) Not freaking out in tough situations is underrated.


6.) No matter how badly your day has gone, just wait.


--


I thought a lot about those keys yesterday, and I can't resist thinking about them today. Where are they? Someone's lawn, waiting to be picked up by a toddler, waiting to be discovered by a lawnmower and mangled? A sewer, anonymous among decayed leaves? Wedged neatly in the crack of the sidewalk, unseen for years and years until the concrete buckles under a repairman's jackhammer?


And then I remember that it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter one bit.

Christian

"As we say, 'I never expected to be a saint, I only wanted to be a decent ordinary chap.' And we imagine when we say this that we are being humble.

But this is the fatal mistake. Of course we never wanted, and never asked, to be made into the sort of creatures He is going to make us into. But the question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when He made us."

-- C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

--

From Friday to Sunday, I was in Hillsdale.

Lots of talks about movies, literature, and memories. All of it worth more than the sum of its parts, truly, and I have to say I had a blast reconnecting with friends. Also spent plenty of time with former professors, some of them buying me food and some of them giving me mead (more on that later). Got to see The Rev. Dr. John Seth Reist, Jr., give his first service at the Presbyterian Church in Jonesville, MI, and I also had dinner with him (the night quickly regressed into a string of offensive jokes).

--

Something happens, to some extent, to everyone who visits their alma mater: You begin to suspect that you will not be making such visits for much longer. You are wearing out your welcome and the number of friends you have there is dwindling. You are not able to "keep up" with the college students any more, either in the number of drinks you consume or the hours you stay up. You realize that the thing you talk and joke about is the one most important thing that you have failed so far to look straight in the face: You are no longer in college.

The process is faster or slower for different people. For me, it took almost two years. I'm glad to have reached this point. In one sense, it places a hedge around my college years, sets them aside as something that is fun to remember but which I do not need to spend a lot of time and effort to reclaim. I can never go back, and at the same time, I can go back as often as I like. It restricts me from pretending I'm eighteen again, but it liberates me to act like I'm twenty-three. It forces me to stop trying to be "an old boy" and to be a young man. It is very easy to be inclined towards the former, and very difficult to attempt the latter.

--

All told, it was a good trip. Got to see the Tower Dancers Concert, all three performances, as well as a friend's senior art show. Both the concert and the art show were beautiful and impressive. I get the sense my former dance instructor, Corrine I., has grown as a choreographer because she is now working with students who have grown as dancers. She trusts them in a way she never could have trusted the group when I was there, probably because amateurs like me hindered her vision. The student-choreographed pieces, too, showed more confidence and clarity than I think were possible two years ago. Sometimes coy and feminine, sometimes sharp and reflective, all the dances radiated the goodness and happiness and energy that attracted me to the group when I was a student.

--

While in college, I experienced all the normal things people experience in college, and in that sense those four years were not unusual at all. But in terms of Who I was and What I did, I realize they were in fact very strange. Before Hillsdale, I was not the sort of person who would indulge in all appetites, or help a friend to be unfaithful to their fiancée, or think of going to church as if it were voluntary slavery,--all the while imagining that I was doing pretty well. But that's precisely the Who and What of college for me.

Removed from it now by two years of work, I see that I rejected Christianity. Even while I quoted C. S. Lewis in my freshman papers, argued theology with friends during lunch, and kept "Christian" as my Religious Views on Facebook, I was becoming a cold, proud, gluttonous wretch.

Dr. Jackson, who insists I call him by his first name from now on, suggested at lunch on Friday that perhaps one reason I fell away from my Christian upbringing is, Hillsdale Christianity isn't Christianity. It's apologetics. It's only an academic question to be debated by people who know a lot about the Bible but little about Christ, and to participate in that is to argue and do nothing more. What you'll find here is pious, self-absorbed intellectualism, not a daily dying to self.

Whether that's the truth of it or not, I'm not the one to say. But it does make some sense. Regardless, I feel I am returning to the self I was before the necessary (and admittedly pleasurable, exciting and educational) experience of college. Even as a kid I never had much regard for testimonies or "born-again" stories, so I won't create another martyr-ish example of self-righteousness here talking in unimportant specifics about my return to Christ. But I will say this:

It's not easy.

--

I mentioned a few weeks ago that a friend, Nick T., spent some time with me on his way back from a trip. He's being chrismated into the Orthodox Church in a few weeks with his little sister Erin, who was one of the dancers in the Concert and who, especially after this weekend, has become a close friend of mine.

In the basement of the music building, while our friends jammed in a practice room, four of us sat in the hallway, talking (like ya do) about life. The question of Erin's Orthodox conversion--and I'm not sure "conversion" is the right word, but it'll have to do--came up, and she spoke for a few solid minutes about faith, the "historical church," and her love for liturgy.

Someone speaking so frankly about their faith is something I haven't heard in a while, not even during the occasional--and dodgy--chat about religion with co-workers. And it's made me reconsider my own faith, which cannot be a bad thing. I get the feeling that reconsideration of my faith, the realignment of my trajectory towards Christ, needs to become a daily practice.

--

Incidentally, Erin also lent me her copy of The Orthodox Church, by Timothy Ware, which I will get started on today. I finished Mere Christianity this morning.

Heaven

"But, of course, when they ask for a lead from the Church most people mean they want the clergy to put out a political programme. That is silly."

-- C. S. Lewis, "Social Morality," from Mere Christianity

--

Still loving Lewis.

--

I've been placed in charge of the books in the storage room: unpacking the boxes, organizing the books, handling each of them (and some, believe you me, are valuable books in pristine condition) and very often stopping to flip through some pages. This is how I've spent the last two days at work.

Sometimes, the universe smiles on you.

--

Not sure if you can actually read the spines in this next one, so I'll just tell: It's an old (very, very old) collection of opera librettos and scores. Included are some of the greats (Boito, Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, et al.), most of the books in perfect condition and wrapped in protective plastic; and the odd duck on top of the collection is an original Broadway production score of Annie, from its premiere in 1977, bound by two rubber bands--literally:

And finally, for those interested in child psychology books that sprang from a bizarre combination of Absurdism and "stickin' it to the man," please, please check this book out as soon as possible. Kept me laughing for the better part of an hour:

Inversion

"A live body is not one that never gets hurt, but one that can to some extent repair itself. In the same way a Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man who is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble--because the Christ-life is inside him, repairing him all the time, enabling him to repeat (in some degree) the kind of voluntary death which Christ Himself carried out.

That is why the Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or--if they think there is not--at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it."

-- C. S. Lewis, "The Practical Conclusion" in Mere Christianity

--

Yes.

--

Spoke for a long time with Nick T. last night about Christianity, Lewis, theatre, journalism, et al. It's the kind of discussion that I stopped having in Hillsdale about halfway through my time there. The all-encompassing kind. The closer graduation came, the more my thoughts were consumed with practicalities, future prospects and the like. Meandering through lay theology fell away.

It's refreshing to invert that, to bring meandering back and let the practicalities recede for some minutes.

--

Like running:

I've scoured for running music and, thanks to suggestions from many folks, I've added to my playlist. I tested it yesterday; great stuff, a pounding in my ears to match the pounding on pavement.

Actually pushed through The Wall that runners talk so much about. Wasn't really keeping track, but I think it happened after forty minutes of intervals (four minutes running, one minute walking). In the last mile, forwent intervals as an experiment, and pushed through ten minutes of straight running. My iPod went out, probably from the constant motion, and while I ran I fished for it in my pocket, which was hard because I was still running. I probably looked like I was being twisted by an invisible fiend--or something--and was trying to get away. Anyway, the long and short is that the iPod didn't come back for a few minutes, and that's when I hit The Wall and came through it, and no song was playing. That's probably good.

Zach H., formerly a cross-country runner, told me that "running is more Zen without music." I believe him. At some point I should try going it alone, with no singer in my ear. Hear the passing cars and stuff. Disregard gaining ideas: song length and distance and time; meditate on passing through space instead.

Let the music recede, hear the world. Or something like that.

--

More classes and workshops this week. February, being Black History Month, is slow for a non-black workshop leader; March's start also slow, but gaining speed. In like a lamb, in that way. The end of the month is rife with appointments, workshops, classes, shows, rehearsals, and more. I've completely forgotten about my taxes.

On Friday, TCTC's first drama class began, taught by yours truly. A barnacle on the yacht of history, I guess. But it went very well, despite my surprise at just how young a six-year-old really is. When they got their monologue selections (six lines of rhyme) they looked about ready to cry.

--

Tomorrow, a talk-back with third-graders about Jack & the Beanstalk. Today, rehearsals start for Tom Sawyer. And I realized last night that this may be my last performance in my last show. Definitely for a while, maybe ever.

And it's not really sobering, or gratifying, or really anything. It's inverted, just the way it ought to be but not how I would expect it. Not at all. I expect it to feel cumulative, like all roads have led here, and instead it feels like I've finally reached a junction to another highway and this last show is an exit ramp. A necessary transition, unfortunately also a barrier to break through. A slowing down before a stop before a speeding up again.

Realness is strangeness.