Merry Christmas!

I hope you all have a good one.

I have been completely and profoundly unable to comprehend that these are my last few days in America. However, Anita called today, and we had a good chat. She also told me that they're moving to Germany in three months, to a "super house" about an hour away from Scharnstein. Wow. That's news.

So... I'm kind of gearing up. :)

I have five more nights at home. I don't care how jealous people are, mostly I'm just scared. I have moments when I catch a breath of that wind of change that tastes so good... oddly enough, those times are most when I feel that my family will continue to do grow even while I'm in Austria. I don't feel bummed that I'll be missing stuff -- just relieved that we're not disbanding or anything. It's going to happen someday; everyone will eventually go their separate ways, and then we'll have family reunions and remember the times when we could all be together at the same time. The other night when I was mourning the fact that the Shakespeare days, the Sunday brunch days, were all drifting astern, Lucy reminded me that that's just what happens when one period of life replaces another. Every time has its own peculiar beauty, and to bemoan the loss of a previous one is to miss the one in front of you.

A lot of the time I just have this cloud of terror hanging over me -- mostly, right now, terror of navigating the Munich/Linz airports, switching planes, and getting through security without losing myself hopelessly. Occasionally I can de-stress enough to feel excited. It's an entirely new stage of my life. Who knows where I'll go from here? And it'll probably be the best thing that's happened to me, ever. I know it will all work out for good. But I also need to take a chill pill.

I see the moon, and the moon sees me

On Friday I saw the moon for the first time. I went outside to look because the news said it would be the fullest in fifteen years, but I guess I've been watching too much Doctor Who because when it rose over the horizon, I wanted to shout: "Hey moon! Can you hear me?" The next thing I thought was, "We should take a family vacation there someday."

The moon is not a feature of our landscape. It's not a decoration in a domed blue ceiling that contains us and composes our little sphere. It's a place. It's another landscape, on which it is possible for human feet to stand. To see the moon is to stand on the deck of a huge ship swinging smoothly through a dark sea and spot an island in the distance -- no, more than that. It's to sight a fellow airman, bound on his own course, and find oneself within hallooing distance. Somewhere in the clouds above the lookout will presently cry, "Ship ahoy!" Nothing but air and space separates us from the great white craft as we sail along. And the face -- the man in the moon, his eyes narrowed in what looks like pain, vainly pursuing the heedless sun all through the night. Those grieving eyes, that wry smile are craters, miles and miles across. Centuries of hopeless courtship have left him fairly bruised and battered, poor man, but he still twirls around us in his earnest game of hide-and-seek, too intent upon his goal to spare us much time of his own.

The sun rises brilliantly somewhere over central Asia. I know because an after-dinner stroll through the garden shows me the moon, stealing somebody else's sunlight and reflecting it dimly back to me, in southwest America. They make a moving pair, bright and cold, day and night, the two lamps that light the human race -- but nothing makes them a couple save our dim perception of them as two ornaments of our world. Ninety-three million miles away, the sun froths with yellow heat, roaring silently to itself. It is massive, appallingly huge, completely beyond our comprehension. The moon, hurtling around our perfectly balanced planet, at most a few hundred thousand miles away, is tiny in comparison. It is lifeless, barren, gray with dust. Dust that, perhaps, still bears the imprint of a human foot. And, of course, an American flag -- probably blown over by now. Here, we are protected by the warm and cozy blanket of atmosphere, but there, you might as well be standing in space, because the moon is naked.

These past few days I've been completely moonstruck. Every night I go outside and goggle at it, and it goggles back at me. My mom found a hobgoblin face in it which she prefers to the classic one, but I like the sad one that squints off into the distance, scanning the sky for the sun. One of the Old Testament prophets -- I think it was Joel -- said that the moon will be turned to blood before the Lord comes, and I've always wondered what that means. I've seen a lunar eclipse turn it rusty brown like dried blood, but wouldn't it be wonderful if that verse meant something completely different? That, perhaps, the moon will one day wake up and come to life? I rather like the image of the moon shaking off his pallor and feeling the blood start in his veins.

Data

Sorry, Liz, I thought I'd already posted this elsewhere.

Anyway -- I'm leaving for Austria on the 27th, at 9:00 pm pacific time. (That's in twenty days, I just realized. Holy cow.) Ich werde bestimmt in Österreich das ganz jahr bleiben, und zurück kommen im Januar 2010. I will indeed remain in Austria for the whole year, and come back in January of 2010. I am not planning to visit home at all until I return, since it's quite a bit of money to fly across the sea. Instead, I hope to use my vacations in doing a bit of traveling on my own -- yikes -- and visiting some friends and relations who will be in the area at different times during my stay.

As for what next year will bring, I only know what vacations Eric and Anita have planned. In February, we will be going on a ski-trip -- during which I suppose I will have to learn how to ski -- and in April we will visit Italy, particularly Mannopello (to see the Holy Face of the aforesaid city), and Rome (for the Easter vigil etc.). In August, they plan to travel to the town of Ars, in France, to visit the tomb of St. John Vianney. Also, there's a youth festival in Medjugorje, which I believe is in Bosnia, and apparently I will have an opportunity to attend that as well. So I'll have plenty to keep me busy. :-)

Right now I'm kind of stressing out, despite everyone's best efforts, including my own. I finally just ordered a coat and some boots from Lands' End today, because I was so sick of indecision. They will probably be fine. Now I've just got to get my brain together and figure out what I still need to buy. There's so much banging around in my head right now -- it's hard to separate out what I really NEED, and what I just want for the comfort of feeling "pulled together". Part of the reason I'm hyper about being prepared is that deep down I'm scared to shop in Austrian stores. But I'll have to get used to it, so I might as well leave a few things out on purpose, heh.

Oh, one thing about communication -- if you have a webcam, and download Skype, we can video chat beautifully (so I hear). Granted, it will have to be at odd hours, but it would be fun! Otherwise, this blog and my email (and maybe facebook) will be the best places to get a hold of me. I'm hoping to post fairly regularly and not leave you all in the dark, but I will probably be awfully busy, so don't expect too much.

Now, I've got to get to bed.

(Music recommendation for today: The Waybacks are pretty cool. I guess they count as "newgrass", and they have their weirder moments, but I LOVE their rendition of The Witch of the Westmoreland. It's an awesome ballad anyway, even if it is a bit dodgy at the end. Haha.)

I've decided to give up reading fiction for Advent. Right now I'm downloading an audible history of Rome to my iTunes in order to implement this resolution. ;)

Music recommendation for today: thought Bob Dylan couldn't actually sing? Listen to his Nashville Skyline album. He's got a really neat voice. It's a great CD -- I used to listen to it practically every day up at TAC. Special treat: Johnny Cash joins him on the first number (the Girl From the North Country).

If I really had something to say, I'd be able to find my own voice to say it with, and not borrow everyone else's. I remember hearing a quotation of Goethe's somewhere, that "there must be a man behind the sentence". There was more, but that's what stuck in my head. It means such a tangle of complicated things to me that I have a difficult time even beginning to articulate them. Of course it means you must be sincere -- but it means far more than that. It's about being a whole person. It's about finding the part of the Truth that quickens your soul and giving it to the world in as many beautiful ways as possible.

It means you have to find meaning in your own life before you can ever hope to give meaning to other people's.

*edit* Thought of a good way to describe it. I feel about writing the way a woman feels who really wants to have children, but hasn't found the right man yet. I want it mainly for the "perks" -- the exultant feeling that attends the strong, steady flow of words from mind to paper, the pride of creating something beautiful -- because until you reach the specific point in your life when such a vocation could come to fruition and cease to be merely an abstract longing, you can't want it for completely the right reasons. To truly want it for the right reasons (which means to appreciate it for what it IS) you must have already found your message, because part and parcel of the desire to write is the desire to communicate something important. Otherwise it's useless, because words without communication are nonsense.

Still sick...

...and nothing really going on, except I am allowed a minuscule amount of luggage on my flight, so I'm going to have to find a cheap way to mail stuff to Austria ahead of time. And I might need a transit visa for switching planes in Munich, which is more annoying paperwork. I'm telling myself it's fun. Except for my cold making me demotivated about life, I'm really rarin' to get out of the States and get started.

Meanwhile... one of my favorite love songs, as heard on the album Leaving Friday Harbour (Battlefield Band). You might recognize a line or two from the quote on my last blog. It's really a great album; you should look it up. That's my music recommendation for today (there will be more to come).

The Pleasure Will Be Mine

"If ye come wi' me tae Fintry,"
Willie says tae Caroline,
"I would hae a happy heart."
"The pleasure will be mine," she says,
"The pleasure will be mine."

The rain was falling down sae hard,
The drains were overflowing --
Ye'd almost think the flood was coming on.
So they huddled in the corner,
Tryin' to keep out all the water,
And he told her all the things he had in mind.

(chorus)

"The papers say the workforce
will be laid off after Christmas,
There's a downturn in the business, so they say.
I'll no' sit about here waitin'
On some company's decision,
So on Friday I'll be lifting my last pay."

"We'll pack our bags an' leave this place,
An' tak the road tae Fintry,
For the country air's as sweet as guid red wine.
And when summertime comes round again,
And corn is ripe for gatherin',
We'll find out if my notion's right or wrong."

They walked hand in hand, and wandered down
Beside the sleepy river,
Where the city sounds grew distant in their ears.
The moonbeams in the water
Glinted silver as he kissed her,
And the rumble of the city disappeared.

Gibt es heute nicht viele zu schreiben. Ich bin krank. Alles das Ich wünche zu tun ist Tee zu trinken und Doktor Who zu bewachen.

-7:15 pm-
(the expanded English version)

The world shrinks into a snowglobe miniature when you've got a cold. Future events, previously weighing constantly on the mind, become meaningless -- nothing exists but the here and now, and even that closes in on itself. The senses are dulled, probably from the generous lining of mucous in the head. The body enters a state of suspended animation. Suddenly, the philosophical yearnings of yesterday, the higher impulses and the uplifting emotions are all swallowed up in the more immediate need of fuzzy PJs and something (possibly entertaining, but anything that changes position will do) playing on the TV screen. Doctor Who is good.

Note to self

When having an asthma attack, it is probably not a good idea to eat something with a name like "atomic fireball".

Wheeze.

Observation: when somebody wants you to vote for them, hire them, view them as having lots of character, or whatever, they frequently talk about how they are "self-made" or had a hard life that forced them to grow up strong. They present this as a qualifying feature.

And yet (particularly in the presidential elections), they then turn around and tell you that you that they want to prevent you from having that experience. They want to obliterate any and all hardships in your life.

Why? If pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps makes you such a good person, why are they so devoted to the cause of making sure nobody ever has to do anything hard in their lives?

I just wonder at the inconsistency. They just don't seem to understand suffering. (I mean, who does? But they seem even more confused than normal.)

the storyteller's power... and helplessness

It's a bit creepy to me how much control an author can exert over his readers. Once you get into the clutches of a skilled writer, it's like a roller coaster -- you hopped on at the entrance because the colors were so bright and attractive, and now you have no idea where you're going to end up or what loops you'll run. He can twist your being inside and out if he likes -- he simply has to make you fall in love with his world and the characters in it, and then let it all go to Hell. Your soul screams at the loss.

Well, mine does, anyhow. I love immersing myself in stories. In fact, being able to completely distance myself from reality is my one true accomplishment. (I wish I could somehow put this singular talent to use, but it's not very practical. All it's really done so far is make me try harder not to use it.) Which is why I feel so violated when I read a book that's wrong. Not badly written -- I can't establish a connection with the world of a badly written book -- but just wrong. The characters don't do what they ought to, and there's no point to their failure. They just fail and you're supposed to accept it. Or something unreasonably stupid and awful happens, and the point of the book ends up being "Thought everything was beautiful, huh? Well, this is real life. Beautiful things die all the time, arbitrarily. There is no reason and no comfort."

And I don't believe that. That's not true. I know that lots of people are not heroes. Lots of people are worse than heroes. Lots of people are flawed and broken and incomplete. But there's a BIG difference between, say, Brideshead Revisited (which is all about how God works through flawed instruments, how we, with all our imperfections, are part of something greater than ourselves) and a story that introduces a profound trial, a time for heroes to step forward, then shows how all the characters were selfish and stupid and seems to conclude that this is OK because they are human. And expects you to feel uplifted by it.

There's a kind of funny occasion, however, of an author who tried to create just the latter insipid story. His story had a real hero in it, and he admired the hero, and was inspired to write the story because of the hero -- but he thought that his readers would be attracted to the normal, self-interested, double-crossing, stick-his-neck-out-for-nobody character, because he was "like us". He thought that he had a certain charm and streetwise commonness that we would look upon indulgently because that's how we all are inside. Fortunately for him, poetry is a matter of inspiration, and not craft. He didn't realize the genius of what he was doing because it wasn't his own genius. If he'd been on his own, he could never have written A Man For All Seasons.

That's right. Robert Bolt thought that the Common Man was a cozy, sympathetic character, because he was "human". He thought he could get away without committing himself to one side or the other, and just admiring certain traits of St. Thomas More, but what he ended up doing (by accident, I think), was highlighting with even more striking clarity the heroism of the saint. Even the title of the play is multilayered. It is fairly clear what Bolt meant it to be, from the quotation at the beginning of the book:

"More is a man of an angel's wit and singular learning. I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity. A man for all seasons." (Robert Whittington)

This portrays him as changeable, yielding, affable -- "all things to all men", as St. Paul says. Not a flatterer, but a man who understands that for everything there is a season. Bolt's main point of interest with More is that he spent his whole life yielding to others, but one day, the king asked too much of him -- asked of him something that to give would be to give up himself, and he became as fixed as a star. That immobility is what I think of when I read the title. Instead of reading it as "a man who fits in with any surroundings", I read it as "throughout all seasons, still a man". In fact, before I read the play I never knew there even was another meaning. I still think it is the most striking of the two.

The Common Man is in direct counterpoint to this idea. He is a different man for every season, depending which way the wind blows. The way he changes his hat at every scene is a hint to this -- although, realistically speaking, the same man could not be butler, boatman and bartender all at once, still I think it is permissible and perhaps even intended for us to take his character as being continuous, though the roles he plays in each scene differ widely. He hardly drops his aside conversation with the audience throughout the whole play. But he has no identity. There is no part of his self, his allegiance, that cannot be another man's if the pay is good. He pretends -- or perhaps Bolt intended him to seem -- to be the one really informed person, the smart guy, the commentator, but in reality he is an outsider, a lack-luster, unreal person. More, smoked out of his quiet life like a badger from his den, is a hero because he sees no way out. His conscience carries him there, for to step off the track would be to lose his very soul. The Common Man makes one limp attempt to avoid being on the jury at the rigged trial, but admits almost at once (if reluctantly) that "the hat fits".

One of my favorite parts of the play is when the jailer refuses to grant More any time longer to say goodbye to his family. "You've got to understand, sir -- I'm just a plain, simple man," he pleads, and leads the Mores away. Thomas, overcome, bursts out passionately, "Sweet Jesus! these plain, simple men!" You can feel his desperate jealousy and contempt for the men who are free from the constraints of conscience, who are able to give up their principles so easily.

In the end, the Common Man is completely insignificant in the light of something much more great and wonderful. He's lost his control of the audience. Thomas More is martyred with an awesome finality. His act is complete. The play is complete. And yet, the Common Man (or maybe Robert Bolt?) tries to have the final word, tries to slip in a snarky epilogue. I've heard some interpret his line "If we should bump into one another, recognize me" as a warning about the power of the masses, but this doesn't compel me because the Common Man has been at best a tool, and never an agent of the schemes afoot. For me, his lines fall flat. He may have started out as a semi-sympathetic character, but by the end of the play the adjective "common" has ceased to have any connection with -- as Bolt intended -- the phrase "most often found" and has really come to mean "base". To me, he sounds as if he's trying to reestablish himself, but even he is a bit unnerved by the influence of something greater than himself. He's lost a bit of his complacency. He blames Thomas for what has happened ("If you must make trouble, make the sort of trouble that's expected"), but I think he's really trying to get his self-assurance back. (That's how I'd direct him, anyway.)

The Common Man is very human. He represents the underbelly of humanity, the stuff we're ashamed of and are trying to work off. Thomas More represents the good in the soul, the part that clings to the Lord. Because that is our true self.

How is this related to the original theme of my post? Well, mostly it's here because I felt so violated by that other book I read that I needed to think about something uplifting. But also, as my family will tell you, I just like to talk about A Man For All Seasons any chance I can get.

The Latest on the Grand Adventure

Last week's paperwork trip was a complete success, although not for the random black man who asked me out. (I've got to say, aside from the fact that he was a total stranger, he definitely could have picked a better place for it than the county jail).

Anyway, East Coast E has requested the background on the Grand Adventure (i.e., my upcoming job in Austria as an au-pair), so for those whom I haven't already told, here it is.

It's quite simple, really -- I'd known about the position for a couple of years, ever since one of my friends first took it. I'm not sure how she discovered it, but as I understand the family became (through her) connected with and very interested in the community that had grown up around TAC. (They are Catholic). Anyway, I'd heard they were seeking someone for 2009, and automatically rejected the idea as too "scary" and "big" for a homebody like me. I thought nothing more of it until the beginning of October, when my mom called me at work to say that they still hadn't found a girl to take the job yet.

"Well, you already know my answer to that," I said, and we dropped the subject. Two seconds after I hung up, though, I thought -- and why not? The only answer I could come up with was "I'm scared", and that didn't seem good enough, so I applied as soon as I got home (in order to have no time to get cold feet). That's how it always seems to go with momentous decisions -- my cool, brassy, executive alter-ego takes over and lays down the law while my real self cowers under the seat in the control room, watching the proceedings in horror.

Sometimes I wonder if my reasoning is twisted, when I think how it was the "scare factor" that decided me in favor of this trip, but I really think you have to begin doing terrifying things at some time. There's no point in avoiding the challenge -- if you shy away now and seek the easy things, you simply postpone the inevitable. Somewhere along the line you WILL have to get out of your comfort zone, and choosing your own point of departure is the most dignified way of going about it, in my opinion. After all, what is life if we never do difficult things? There's no growth. There's no confidence. There's no perspective. And above all, there's no faith. Faith is easy if you're never tested, just as loving someone is easy as long as they don't require anything of you. If you say you love someone, how will they know you love them unless you act? Or maybe, to put the question as Robert Bolt's Thomas More might have -- how will YOU know you love them?

And that, rather simplified, was how the "Grand Adventure" came about.

Update: Ahh yes, details. I'm afraid that for this past month I've been thinking so furiously about the details that I unconsciously assumed I must have actually talked about them. Well, anyway, here they are -- I will be staying in a town called Scharnstein, which is in Upper Austria and located at the foot of the Salzkammergut, a countryside of mountains and lakes (a resort area, apparently). It's about 140 miles west of the city of Vienna, and somewhat southeast of Linz. I will be looking after three little boys (Mikhail, Johannes and Josef, ages 7, 5, and 3) and their baby sister Maria. I'll also be taking a year-long German course while I'm over there; not sure where that'll be, but it will be awesome, I'm sure. I'm already studying German with my mom and really enjoying it. I'm confident I'll pick it up really quickly once I'm over there.

My duties as an Au-Pair are looking after the children (playing with them, helping them with homework, teaching them a little English) and helping Anita with the housework. They like to "go on excursions", so I'm going to get a fair bit of sightseeing in just going out with them. (In fact, they've already got quite a few vacations planned, as I may have mentioned -- for instance, they are going to Rome in the spring to celebrate Easter at St. Peter's!) I also have some friends attending ITI in Gaming, whom I will hopefully get to visit. And my dad might visit me also, if he goes to the international evolution conference in March. So I expect to be very busy and possibly quite stressed at first -- but I'm hoping to adjust to the novelty of a fast-paced, hardworking life and be a much healthier person for it. Being somewhat independent will be a good experience as well. Sigh. A world of good and improving experiences awaits me. I'm awfully glad to have this opportunity, but all the same, it's hard knowing ahead of time how much growing I'm going to have to do. Being there in the middle of it would be better -- all this waiting, knowing how much I'm going to have to change (like breaking bones set wrong and resetting them again, to put it melodramatically) kind of freaks me out. That's why this waiting is so frustrating. Of course, I can't really predict how the whole thing is going to affect me. I just know it'll be a good change, whatever it is, if I'm open to it.

Inaugural post

Welcome to my new blog. I have moved here to avoid the invasive features of xanga, since it got to the point where I couldn't even retreat to my subscriptions page without being chased by hordes of vacuous plugs submitted by people desperate for comments. I won't give the "featured post" rant again, but I might mention to anyone who cares that having a blog does not automatically promote you into the "intelligentsia" (if the class even exists any more, which I sometimes doubt). Not that I have a rapier wit myself, but I know hypocrisy when I see it.

Anyway... you're probably wondering about the title at the top of the page. Well, I usually hem and haw over the title to anything, as such things are very important to me, but this time I got frustrated. All I wanted was a little space to write, and it irritated me that I had to give it some kind of name. I had literally been sitting here for twenty minutes when a G.K. Chesterton quote popped into my head: "Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese." And I thought -- well, I'm a poet (occasionally). And I sure as heck have never written a poem about cheese. Thus a title was born.

It is slightly awkward, I admit, because I am actually quite fond of cheese (especially weird cheese with fuzzy green spots). But since I don't often find myself monologuing about the stuff, I decided I could get away with it. And from now on I will observe a strict verbal fast from cheese of all kinds, except when it is essential to the continuity of my narrative that I make some allusion to the role it plays in the events of my life story.

Now I must retire, as I have a busy, bureaucratic day tomorrow (must apply for my passport and acquire some other documentation), and it is almost midnight. I may post something serious before the year is out, but that remains to be seen.