next to something huge

happy valentines day.

2012-02-14T14:01:00.003Z

Double dark chocolate cupcakes for dessert :)

old shoes and new ones

2012-01-24T18:30:00.002Z

I had this one pair of running shoes, back when I was training for the first half marathon (one of the two—it was a short career). They were black with thin, gold stripes on the side. Asics GT-2130s I believe. Those were the best dang shoes I’ve ever had. I loved that they were black instead of the typical white or gray with a few colorful spots. They looked tough, and I felt tough the first time I ran the 13.1 miles. You don’t even know how much I love those shoes. That was four years ago now that I bought them, and although I have purchased many pairs of running shoes since, I have held onto the black and gold ones. I wear them with sweats or jeans on Saturdays. I wear them when I’m comfortable and dressed down, and they still look awesome. I mean it, they are really cool.

Since the black and gold days, I hadn’t found another pair quite as good. Even though I’ve continued to buy that Asics series, I have not appreciated the changes to the model. UNTIL NOW. A few months ago on a longer Saturday run my knees started to hurt. My knees never hurt. My feet, yes. Toes, ankles sometimes, even my shoulders. But not my knees. I went home, showered, and drove straight to the sports store because I had a coupon and hurting knees can only mean one thing: New shoes required. They had one pair left in my size, and I was pleasantly surprised by the gray color with purple highlights, the soles that were neon green, purple, silver. Not tough, but really cool. I bought them. I brought them home. I ran on Monday. And I was in love, for the second time.

A few weeks ago Mark and I went up to Pennsylvania to visit some old friends. “Old” means that these are friends we made in college, friends that although we have moved on, grown up a bit, gotten hitched, secured relatively stable careers, are still some of our best friends. We had such a wonderful time visiting—laughing at old, ridiculous college memories, like when Mark and Nate dressed up as characters from the Die Hard series for Halloween one year, and when Lu and I used to run through downtown Harrisonburg, the vacation we took together last summer. And we talked about the future too, our hopes for this new year, our mutual cloudiness over what the next few years will hold. It was relaxing, fun, easy, so familiar. These are the old, black and gold friends. Old faithfuls. Even though we can’t run with them every day anymore, they will always be there in the closet, favorites and still perfect for certain times and dates.

We have made a lot of new friends these past few years living in Winston-Salem. When we moved here it was a bit of a gamble, only knowing a few people, but we have been truly astounded at the community that rose up. There is the Young Life community, our remarkable new church community (who would have thought what harvest we would reap when we sowed the seeds of my short part-time career as the youth director of a new church we hadn’t considered before?), and the surprise of new friends through Hannah and Josh, just twenty minutes away. These new friends know us as Mark&Ginny, rather than individually, and I love that, because it is the truth of us now. These are the new shoes, the friends that are now in the everyday of my life.

This has gotten me into thinking about these seasons of life through which we rise and fall, and the reality that the important thing is the people. I am thankful for my old shoes, and my new ones (I love shoes a whole lot), and I am thankful for our old friends and our new ones (I love them a whole lot more.)

(visiting those old friends)

seventeen books.

2012-01-02T11:00:00.000Z

On January first of 2011 I made a few N.Y. resolutions, including the resolution to read fifteen books in twelve months. Characteristically, I made four or five resolutions and completed two or three, but the resolution to read was more than filled. These are the 17 books I read last year, and my reviews. A few were mentioned in my 25th birthday post back in June, so excuse my redundancy.

1. Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas. (****) This is the biography of one of the great theologians of the twentieth century, a German Christian who lived during the first and second World Wars, and spent his life devoted to the active practice and study of the life of Jesus. He was imprisoned by Nazis during World War II after taking part in the assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler, and was executed just before the end of the war in April of 1945. Bonhoeffer is an enormous book, physically (at around 1,000 pages), historically, as it offers the rare perspective of a German Christian in opposition to Naziism during that dark time in the world, and literarily, a beautifully written story with a perfect balance of facts, faith and politics.

2. East of Eden by John Stienbeck. (*****) This is my favorite novel of all time, and this was my third time reading it. It is the perfect epic story, with some of the best written characters in all of fiction (Samuel Hamilton, Lee). It is the story of budding America, a coast-to-coast saga of the reprecussions of sin throughout generations, the unique and bizarre relationship of brothers, fathers and sons. The way Stienbeck reaches back to the very dawn of humanity to Adam and Eve and shows the continuity of the human race is perfect. This book is PERFECT.

3. Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin. (**)Typically I don't choose chick books like this, but Emily Giffin was coming to speak at Wake Forest back in the winter and I always try to attend when published authors speak in town. She was on a pre-movie book tour for this book, along with its bunch of sequels, so I picked it up. It's the story of best friends competing for one man - a great deal of backstabbing, under handedness and treachery, with a somewhat disconcerting while also satisfying ending. It definitely kept me going, but wasn't one I'd read again.

4. Bel Canto by Anne Patchett. (***) I bought this book from the used bookshop down the street purely because the cover is beautiful - turquoise and gold, shadowy and haunting silhouettes of people. It's a very interesting story of a hostage takeover in South America. At a fancy birthday party full of politicians and celebrities a guerrilla gang infiltrates the home of the host looking to kidnap the president. However, when the president is not in attendance, the gang decides to take the entire party hostage. Somehow this situation propels 300 pages of compelling story. The best part of the book is the writing - Patchett's language is precise and lovely - and though I didn't love the outcome of the story, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

5. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. (*****) I have been accused of speaking in hyperbole (WHATEVER) but this is my second favorite book :) WOW, I was absolutely blown over by the story, the eloquent and reachable language and craft of writing, the weaving together of stories to come to the end, the emotion, the drama. Across generations and miles, the story of several different Jewish families, the effects of the Holocaust over decades, and the book that ties them all together. Fantastic and brilliant. I'll read anything she ever writes.

6. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. (***) Looking back I realize I read a lot of Jewish or World War II literature this year unintentionally. This book got a lot of press this year - a young Jewish girl's story of escape from the hand of Nazis and her journey back home to find her lost baby brother. I was expecting greatness after what I had heard, but was not as impressed as I'd expected to be. Still a good story, emotionally exhausting.

7. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. (***1/2) The only reason I don't give this one four stars (only three) is because I am not overly captivated by Chinese literature. Set in China in the 1800s, this story is about a young girl growing up - the old Chinese culture for young women, from foot-binding to old sames (arranged best friends) all the way through mother and grandmotherhood. The story is excellent, well-told, well-researched, fascinating.

8. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Juliet Ashton. (***1/2) This was a good summer book, a light, fun, feel-good story of a small island off of the UK, occupied during WWII (I know, we're up to four). It's entirely letters - the whole story is told through the correspondence of several characters. I was skeptical, but ended up really loving it!

9. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. (****1/2) This book was phenomenal, if you are reading this and you haven't read it, don't even rent it from the library. Buy it. The story of a lifetime for twin brothers Marion and Shiva - born in Africa at a mission hospital, the story of their childhood there in Ethiopia, and then into their lives as they grow up. Such fascinating relationships, such beautiful writing. There is a great deal of medical jargon and discussion, as the book is largely based upon their lives around a hospital and then as they grow up and continue in the world of medicine. This book kept me turning and turning, and I think I read the last 100 pages in one sitting. I can't sing the praises of Cutting for Stone highly enough. It was one of the great books of my life.

WHEW, half way there. My feet are FREEZING (it's 65 degrees in here but I don't want to get up and put socks on. I'm sweaty too, from a run this morning, and now I'm all cold and sweat and white toes). TMI? Sorry, okay let's keep going... Now we're moving into the fall.

10. Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay. (****) Perhaps I enjoyed this book so much because it was so unlike everything else I had read by this point. I have also always been very fascinated by Russia, although I don't think I would ever actually choose to go there, I find the history and culture wholly fantastic. It's the story of a Russian ballerina and drama of her life, told from her perspective as an old woman going through her collection of jewelry piece by piece, each artifact symbolizing a time or event in her life. It is unique and ingenious, dark and rich. I really enjoyed it, was sad to turn the last page. In fact, I think I had to read the last five pages twice to make sure I got the ending straight :)

11. Exile by R. N. Patterson. (**) This is strange, but it feels like I read this book two years ago. It is a very lengthy political thriller centered on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. It was interesting to me because I have been to Israel and am spiritually invested in that entire saga. However the story was painfully drawn out, and some of the political stuff just got to be too much, too detailed. I think if I were a bit smarter or had read it at a time when I could really focus on it, I may have felt differently, but for me it was just OK.

12-14. The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. (****) It took me four weeks to read the entire series, I became so wrapped up in this story. I was amazed by the first book. The story of this futuristic world where the continental US is divided into these districts, controlled by this crazed central dictatorship is so interesting, and the Hunger Games, a sort of gladiator-like fight between children, seems like a really sick idea for a book series, but Collins creates it so masterfully! After the first book I was chomping at the bit for the second, which I liked almost as much. However, I was pretty disappointed with the third. I think she took on too much in the third book, and some of the story sort of fizzled out because there was almost too much to wrap up. However, I'd recommend the series absolutely!

15. State of Wonder by Anne Patchett. (****) LOVED this book. Again, Patchett is brilliant with the English language, description, drama, emotion, people. I'm fascinated by the way she writes and aspire to write as she does. Marina is a research biologist who ends up traveling to the Amazon jungle to find out what happened to her colleague that went missing weeks earlier. Books that teach me something, show me something of a place or thing I can't even fathom, are my favorite, and A.P. painted the Amazon so clearly for me. She had to have gone there. There is one scene in this book that was really the most amazing scene I've ever read in a book - I'll just say it's the "snake scene." Go read it, and tell me that's not the most AMAZING writing. Gosh, I want to read it again for the first time. I loved it.

16. The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova. (**) Strangely, this book was disappointing. It was quite long, a strange investigative story about an artist, tortured and misunderstood by the imaginations of his mind, and his psychiatrist's efforts to understand and get to the bottom of his crazed actions. I invested a lot of time in the book, and in the end was not overly impressed by the result. However, I have two friends that read and really enjoyed the book, so maybe it was just me :/

17. Great House by Nicole Krauss. (****) It was great to end the year with Nicole Krauss again, after how much I adored The History of Love. Similar to her other novel, the book weaves the stories of the lives of several Jewish characters together until they meet at one central object: a large, dark writing desk. Her brilliance, the way the characters connect to each other is astounding, really. This story is a darker story than the other, there is no laughter or great happiness, but it's such a satisfying book. This was another one I had to back and re-read a few things to figure out all of the threads between chapters and people, but once I pieced a few last things together I was blown away.

Such a good year of reading! There are a few others I started, and have yet to finish. Maybe in 2012? Hope this list gives you a few reading ideas! Happy New Year,

Ginny

santa claus came to town.

2011-12-27T01:59:00.007Z

Tomorrow Hannah and I will drive the fourteen hours back to North Carolina, which in and of itself sounds a little daunting, but which on the heels of one of the best Christmases ever isn't really all that bad. In a few days I'll construct some 2012 resolutions. I'll post about the books I read this year and construct some new healthy living plan. I'll probably clean out my closets (ew) and make some new goals about savings and 401-ks and stuff like that, but for now, feast your eyes on this.....

this december.

2011-12-17T18:40:00.006Z

This December, though full of travels and out of the ordinary people and events, has not moved too quickly. It's remarkable because life was seeming to take on this sprinting quality for a while there in September and October, but has now graciously slowed down.

At the get-go, the first weekend of this month, two dear friends from Richmond came down to visit. Allison and I spent 28 of the 36 hours she was here talking, which to Mark is wholly phenomenal, and Graham and Mark played games, both physical and electronic, built fires and wrestled Sidney. Their visit was a gust of fresh wind to usher in the season. Then last weekend the entire Ficker family gathered in Greenwich, Connecticut for that funeral I alluded to a post ago. Where I had expected great sadness and stress, I instead found joy, memories and, surprisingly, fun. The five of us, plus William (Hannah’s baby), explored the town where dad grew up, buried the ashes of my Grampa and memorialized his life. We drove out to the Sound where the ruins of an old mansion in which my father's family and twelve other war veterans and their families lived in the forties and fifties, but which is now only the skeletal stones because it burned to the ground in sixty. I'm fascinated by the history, the passage of a great deal of time even though I still view my father as young. We followed it up with a three-hour family dinner at one of the nicest restaurants in town, after which we drove down into the city, across the river and through the north end, all the way into Rockefeller Center where we saw the colossal tree, onto Broadway and into Times Square. My brother drove—strange, sudden flashes of his adulthood still disarm me—and carried us eventually to Queens where we stayed another night and flew out early Sunday. Somehow, a miracle of the season, the weekend turned into the most dear, memorable weekend for the five of us, a weekend that stitched us together in a way that is increasingly rare as we grow up and live apart.

Mark and I have been listening to Christmas music for the past few weeks, from my iPhone, the radio, his record player. I ordered George Winston’s album .December. on record, and he ordered Mainheim Steamroller, and we’ve been laughing for a few days because to him, G.W. is just some sappy piano ballads, and to me Manheim is like Christmas Techno. We agree on the unsurpassing greatess of Amy Grant’s albums .Tenessee Christmas. and .Home for Christmas., and I’ve slowly converted him to a Sara McLachlan .Wintersong. fan (“River” is my favorite.) I work with this one woman, she's precious, just turned 55. We were bringing patients back to be x-rayed on Thursday and the Christmas Muzak station was coming out of the speakers in the corners of the office. She looked at me and said, "Christmas music is sad." As I have transitioned from child to adult, it's like I've been granted access to the Adult Club where you learn things like flying is more a hassle than fun, wine and coffee are fabulous in their bitterness, and that the holidays are, in many ways, sad. She said, "this is the hardest time of the year because I miss my grandmother, I want her here with me. And I want everyone to be together--my children, my grandchildren, but they cannot be." I have spent a great deal of time contemplating the two sides of my favorite time of year, adjusting to clear enough vision to see this sadness that even sometimes overpowers the joy. It is tempting to box up my own sadness for the month, stow it away with the things I removed from the mantle over the fireplace to be replaced by my nativity, candles and greenery, but I think maybe that makes it a lot harder to enjoy the JOY of the season. Does that even make sense?

My sister was talking about Mary a few weeks ago, how she must have been pretty exhausted by the time Jesus was ready to be born. I started reading the gospel of Luke, slowly, over these last weeks, about Mary and Elizabeth. How Mary didn't want a baby, and she was given Jesus. And all Elizabeth wanted was a baby, and she finally got John. And how they would have to watch them walk through this life, die brutally and young, sons that were never really theirs to begin with. There was a lot of sadness there for them I imagine. I bet there were times that those two girls wished they would've just had normal, little kids. But they were given something FAR greater. Hannah said that maybe we ought to approach the season of Christmas with a deeper preparation for the sadness, and even though I don't find that overly appealing, I think she's right. And I think my dad's been trying to teach me that for years... Wisdom comes with age.

And still, this is our hope:

For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder:
and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will do this.

Isaiah the prophet, chapter nine.

lately.

2011-11-13T19:38:00.009Z

How does it come to be that suddenly you look at the digital date stamp at the top right corner of your computer screen and it is not only the month of November, but nearly half-way through? Though it doesn't feel like time is sprinting as it has in the past, I'm not exactly sure how it happens to pass without my noticing. This has been one of my favorite falls. It stayed cool without getting cold through October, Mark's football team is having a good season with a secured spot in the playoffs and a bi-week coming up. The trees here in Winston are outstanding - I have never seen trees look so bright, as if they were actually plugged into subterranean outlets. I've had the gift of time with my siblings, my college roommates, my parents and in-laws. We've painted the living room sage and had the rotten window sill in the bathroom replaced, mulched the backyard and planned a trip for the winter to New York. The fall has surprised me because I was expecting a lot of stress. Somehow we got peace instead.

My father's father passed away Friday, poignant since he served in the second World War. It is sad and difficult because dying is such a foreign concept, and I keep thinking about my dad and how devastated I will be if I ever lose him. We will all fly to Connecticut for his funeral in December, and I look forward to seeing the whole family because in a time like this I think that having your family gathered is the only real comforting thing on this earth. I am so thankful for my family

Today I finished inputting changes to the third draft of my current project, a novel about a thirty - year - old woman who is forced by the devastating infidelity of her husband to begin her life all over again. It's called Roma Roma because she goes back to work for a catering company by that name. This book has been an absolute pleasure to write and edit, and I'll begin the agent search soon. The entire process, I've recently realized, is one of the ways that I meditate. It's worshipful and peaceful for me. I am also reading My Antonia by Willa Cather because my book club chose it, so I have to. I didn't want to but now I love it. That is the current, for better and worse.

Here are some pictures from the last month or two...

the luxury of time + aloneness.

2011-10-10T00:32:00.007Z

Today begins my 3-day writing retreat. Holed up in this Hogwarts-esque dream, a birthday gift from many loved ones, I find myself in something of a fog of disbelief - by what extraordinary grace was three days ALONE bequeathed to me? Agenda: Edit both manuscripts. Agendettes: Blog a bit, sleep, run and wander around underneath the multi-colored leaves.

Catching up on lost time I present first, our family Labor Day Sandbridge Extravaganza...

Jonathan's 3rd Birthday.

And Mark's 27th Birthday.

sameness.

2011-10-06T22:39:00.002Z

The New York Times Bestseller List, a somewhat vague article that often seems more adjective than noun, has become a flashing sign for readers. READ THIS BOOK, THE MIGHTY CITY OF NEW YORK AND ITS FINEST MINDS STAND BY THE PROMISE IT WILL WOW YOU. The imprint of the distinguishing label is given as a reward for excellence, but it is at the same time an impetus for excellence. Novels stamped with the seal very quickly rise from the “middle class” of published work, the tier above the unpublished, agent-searchers, to the upper echelon of books that sell millions of copies, become movies and leave their author somewhat stunned at his or her unexpected and unimagined success. Certainly we have all, or most of us have, read a New York Times Bestseller and been left wanting, but isn’t it interesting how most of the time those books really are delicious, enjoyable, wonderful works of art that make your mind swim?

It is fascinating to me that one book, three-hundred pages give or take, a story imagined, words strung together, has the potential to push its way through the front door of thousands upon thousands of minds?—different ages, stages of life, demographics do not hinder a book like this. Steinbeck’s East of Eden, for instance, a novel now nearly sixty years old, is read by perhaps millions of people over time, and each one treasures it for some reason. Universality of pleasure—common preferences. How can so many enjoy so unique, so concrete a thing?

And then take food, for instance. Isn’t it strange that everyone loves Peanut M&Ms? (Noted: I am making a gross generalization, but it is pretty much true, and arguing that many people are allergic to peanuts is irrelevant, because were it not for the allergy they would probably eat peanut M&Ms, and in fact most Peanut-Intolerants spend half of their lives wishing it weren’t so). How can it be that people, being so different in so many ways, can love the same little colored pebbles? A rich woman, during her time of the month, is very likely to pick up a bag of P-M&Ms in the check-out line at the Boutique grocery store, while a poor man may spend the only $.89 he has on one yellow bag. There are some instances, it seems not too outlandish to say that many instances, where things like this, things that seem unique, are in fact almost fully universal. I think it is absolutely fascinating.

I like what this suggests—that each person, though celebrated for his uniqueness in the world, is made up of much the same stuff as his neighbor—that people are unified by an overarching commonness, and are therefore not solitary—individual realization of this is perhaps the anecdote of loneliness.

Mind babble - permissible because it's my blog.

long time coming.

2011-09-12T01:33:00.000Z

I remember where I was on September eleventh ten years ago. Sophomore year of high school, just getting started. The old brick building did not have central air, so all of the teachers with windows kept them open. Interior classrooms without windows were just out of luck. When our principal came over the intercom the first time, stating that “an event had occurred in New York,” without any more detail, nobody really had any idea what that meant, and we wondered curiously. A bit later, perhaps an hour, I sat in math class working on practice problems from the overhead when the principal returned to the intercom, explaining that at this point we were all going to be dismissed from school and sent straight home. I remember a nervous feeling at the pit of my stomach, how everyone was abuzz, how I had no idea. How I wanted to be at home. Sweat dripped down my back under my shirt as I walked home across the back practice fields, and through the back of my neighborhood. It was so bright, I remember having a headache and no sunglasses, carrying my backpack on one shoulder so that the sweat wouldn’t come through my shirt. And I remember walking in the front door and seeing my mom in her yard work clothes, sitting on the edge of the ottoman in the family room, her elbows on her knees like a child, her eyes glued to the television. I can still vividly remember the picture on the television—the repeated action of the airplanes crashing through the two towers of the World Trade Center.

I also remember where I was on September eleventh six years ago. Sophomore year of college this time, just getting started. A morning class had me out the door of my dorm by nine, and I did not return until about noon. Those hours were a fog to me—early that morning I had learned that my grandmother, my dad’s mom, had passed away after battling Alzheimer’s disease for many years late the evening before, September tenth. Though sobering, her death was not a shock, and in some ways, it was a kindness—to her. But losing someone you have spent many years loving is an emptying experience. It was so warm in the sun that day, and I remember that the weather felt very wrong. I wanted gray rain. In my room the lights were off and a box fan stuck in the window pulled in the air, which then circulated and lifted the pages of a textbook on the edge of my desk. Sitting down, I opened up my laptop, then e-mail, to find out about a homework assignment. There was an e-mail from my mom, a short one without proper punctuation, telling me that my cousin had been found dead in his room. No explanation. Some kind of diabetic heart attack. A grandson of the grandmother who had just died—my dad’s nephew. I choked, felt as if my stomach would seize. And then I started to cry—a flood of tears the likes of which I had never produced, and have not recreated since. I remember falling on the floor, sobbing, pain in my stomach, my face pressed against the grainy, tan rug. The sound of the fan. I remember my friend coming in the room, finding me there, and how I couldn’t even speak to explain why I was crying. I remember staring at the news on the computer screen for hours afterward. I remember the severity of the emotion so vividly, the pain and confusion and loneliness, that when I think about it my shoulder blades still draw up as if they are being sewn together.

And I remember where we were on September eleventh three years ago. In the hospital, waiting for my sister to give birth to her first child. My mom had been there with her all day, and Mark, my fiancé then, and I came later when we got off from work. I remember how Mark wanted to bring her a milkshake from Cook Out, and that Hannah wanted us to hang around in her room all afternoon so she wouldn’t be bored while she waited. She was happy and youthful, with her ponytail high up and off to the side, so fresh and so much more enthusiastic than I would have been, knowing what was coming. I remember when it was time, and we all cleared out and went to the waiting room, and I remember when Josh came out an announced they had had a son, Jonathan Turner Adams. There were a few tears, but mostly just ecstasy, and I remember that she let me come in with her first, with my mom and Josh, and I sang Blackbird to that little baby boy.

Today I was listening to the radio; there have been memorial tributes all day, remembering the tenth anniversary of the attack on America. One man said, “All we have is memories,” and that struck me. I want to memorialize it for all of these reasons, along with my fellow countrymen, along with my family. September eleventh. Ten years ago today the towers fell. Six years ago today my family fell apart. Three years ago today we mended up again. Today is a new day.

home.

2011-08-23T00:10:00.002Z

I have always been a homebody. In high school I liked to hang out with my dad and watch old James Bond movies on Friday nights, and I always preferred to eat birthday dinners around the dining room table with my parents, Kyle and Hannah over going out. When Hannah married Josh and they started celebrating Christmas at my house each year I was relieved, because home is really about having everyone all together, and Christmas would have been improper without my big sister. When my family moved to Florida during my freshman year of college, I was beside myself, kind of spun wildy out of control, because I couldn't stand the thought of losing the comfortable familiarity of what I thought was 'home.'

One thing I have learned over the past few years, though, is that home is where my family is. When I went home for college summers, to our house in Florida, it felt almost instantly right - the change of 'venue' had not changed my home. It was where my family was. Some of the sweetest summers, the sweetest holidays of my life have happened at home in Florida even though I didn't 'grow up' there. Though maybe I did, in a more true sense of the words.

Last week I got to go home. From Sunday to Thursday I woke up in my double brass bed, my parents' first bed, across the hall from my brother, twenty years old, six and a half feet tall, snoring. I walked downstairs and said hi to my mom, reading her Bible in the red library, and missed my dad leaving in his suit because I had slept in every morning. I did The Southwest Florida News-Press crossword puzzle in pen every morning, ate my mom's chocolate chip cake every evening, and laughed with my brother and my dad every day, repeating lines from The Office, and spent hours with mom discussing many things, primarily clothes, shoes, friendship and books. It was perfectly delightful.

And then I came home. It's funny, isn't it? Now I'm married to Mark. We live in our small, brick house in Ardmore (in a state neither of us had ever really known), with our enormous moose dog. We have pictures on the walls, and our own friends and church and favorite Mexican restaurant and electric bills. We belong to the YMCA, shop at the Food Lion down the street, watch movies on the couch my grandfather gave us when we got married and enjoy the occasional luxury of cake from Maxie B's bakery in Greensboro. When I saw Mark step out of his work van at the airport I felt this familiar rush of comfort, which I realized is similiar, though also unique, to the comfort I feel when I step into the foyer of my house. In Florida. In North Carolina. They're both home and Mark, who is the richest, most blissful embodiment of this idea, this amour, this attachment, is also the feeling of home. Many sides of the same globe, which is my heart, a glowing sun all burning and fiery with love for home, my family.

I don't think I have to decide. I have tried - to call the house in Fort Myers with the pool and pictures of me as a toddler "My.Parent's.House." And likewise, I have tried to call this house, "our new house." But I kind of love that they're both home.

This is a quote by Charles Dickens I have on the dashboard in my car... It has been there for three years:

"When I speak of home, I speak of a place where in default of a better - those I love are gathered together; and if that place were a gypsy's tent or a barn, I should call it the same good name notwithstanding."

Amen.

overdue photo recap...

2011-08-15T13:59:00.005Z

Sharp Top Cove...

Evans Vacation Week at Lake Lure, NC

bowling and bee stings.

2011-07-19T19:31:00.002Z

I have cried every day for the past three. Though I am admittedly an "emotional" person (*side note: I do think that the label or diagnosis of "emotional" is somewhat of a misnomer because everyone is susceptible to riptides spurred by emotions), this daily waterworks show is irrational. I will go ahead and say NO, reader, it has nothing to do with hormones. It has everything to do with exhaustion. When I am exhausted, I usually start to simmer, work my way up to angry over the course of a day, and come to the big bang with a whopping, smoking, spewing, firey cry around the time I should be going to bed. What is that?? This is one of the things I hate most about myself because it is so totally over the top. I think that by now I should be able to handle my emotions, be they positive or negative, with collected cool. This is not the case.

Mark and I returned from Young Life camp, where we hung out with tons of high school kids for a week, on Sunday morning at 6:00 am. That means that we spent the six hours preceding 6:00 am on a bus, and the four hours before that "galaxy" bowling. This experience taught me two things: bowling is not so bad, and I am not a teenager anymore. For the past few years, in my early twenties, I could hang with high school girls and be okay. But now that the mid-twenties have officially commenced, it is as if I suddenly inherited a walker and a heart splint, and my knees just aren't what they used to be. This is quite sad. I will continue to pretend, though.

We had an incredible week. We hiked a mountain, we blobbed, we swung from the giant free-fall trapeze swing, we played rounds and rounds of frisbee golf, we went to Young Life club with four hundred kids every day, we ate tons of food, we woke up early, we went to bed late, we marched through a swarm of bees and got stung, we swam in the pool, we played in a volleyball tournament, we did the zipline, the blob, the ropes course and the Quantum Leap. (Don't ask). We had a blast hanging out with the high school friends we have made over the past few years as Young Life leaders at Forsyth Country Day School.

Most of all, though, we heard our speaker, Sid, talk about Jesus-- he told us the whole story, how "Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world." (Ref Hebrews 1:1-2). I know this already, this is the foundation of everything that we believe most closely to our hearts, that Jesus is the breath of God, but for some reason it was new this week. There were moments I felt like a camper again, hearing the gospel with unbroken ears, and it was a sweet, sweet thing. I want to hold tight to the Word, the words, and let them be reborn in me every morning. And although I cannot seem to get a lasso on these emotions that keep slinging me around in circles, the exhaustion is a small price to pay for the golden gift of watching my friends hear about the Jesus I know for the first time. That will preach.

Now, back in the day-to-day of worklaundrydinneruptoolatewakingupearlydogwalkingphonetalkingbillsetc., part of me wants to march all the way back to Jasper, Georgia and live at camp where it is not so hard to remember that the gospel is new every day, that I am loved by my Father in heaven, and that I cannot earn his favor. But we are walking back down the mountain, and that is good.

Pictures to come. Peace.

2011-07-08T13:28:00.006Z

Tomorrow Mark and I leave for Sharp Top Cove, Young Life's summer camp in Jasper, Georgia, to spend another week with high school kids. This is our third summer taking the trip, and we've spent the week making runs to the Dollar Store to buy cheap costumes and candy, packing up our suitcases, calling kids to tell them to BE PUMPED, and going to bed early, as if I can stock pile energy.

It's been a while since I've posted, mostly because we have been running around so much this month and the only times when there is are a few moments to breathe (or write a blogpost) we are at home where there is no internet. Kind of annoying. Also a dang good excuse. There is this one podcast I kind of like produced by NPR, called Culturetopia. At the end of the one hour show, the hosts all do this little blurb called "What's Making You Happy This Week." There are three or four of them, and they each get to say one. Since there is only one of me, I'm going to say three things making me happy this week.

1. Remembering and soaking up the memory of the blissful relaxation that was our vacation to Punta Cana.

2. Seeing a bunch of friends in Harrisonburg last weekend for the celebration of the Purks wedding, especially THIS ONE:

3. My nephews, Jonathan and William, who came for July 4th...

Off to Georgia in the morning...

draining the reservoir.

2011-06-09T18:50:00.004Z

For my birthday, Mark, and many members of my family and a few dear friends threw some money into a pot to send me away on a writing trip. When he presented me with this sum, along with the freedom to choose where and when I would take this retreat, I felt two things primarily: gratitude and fear. The gratitude is obvious. The fear comes from the bottom of my gut, the place from which all of my fears are born, and that is a reservoir of insecurity. What if I don't write anything worthwhile? What if I have writer's block the entire time? What if I never sell a book, and am therefore never actualized in my craft by the public, and therefore spend thousands of hours working on something that never earns a penny when I could have had a full-time job making a steady income with benefits and a 401K, and everyone that knows me and loves me thinks I am a big, fat failure?

Sounds pretty beat up to me when I write it down. Perhaps this is the therapy of writing. I articulated some of this sentiment to my sister that afternoon, and she laughed and shook her pretty head, and assured me that everyone who gave money to the writing trip gave because I love to write, and they wanted to provide me with the joy of four un-interrupted days doing the thing that I enjoy most on the earth. There is no choking collar of expectation that I need to wear, and in fact, it would do everyone a great disservice to know that I was wearing a collar on the trip at all. Phew. After that conversation, the fear magically evaporated, and was replaced by anticipation.

The next day I booked 4 days and 3 nights at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina in October. The thought of four days with Dora and my own big bed with a box spring that does not groan and screech whenever anyone moves slightly, and a view of the North Carolina mountains in October as they are molting from summer clothes to winter, is thrilling.

To explain further, the idea of a writing trip came about a few months ago during an exasperated conversation with Mark. It was probably close to eight o'clock and I was cooking dinner, waving my chopping knife around, explaining the frustrations of writing: The loneliness. The ebb and flow of thinking the project is excellent, and the next day wretched, and never really knowing. The time it takes to get from one page to another. The frustration when someone asks how it's going, which is a perfectly valid question, but never knowing what the hell to say. The only living being who doesn't ask is Sidney, and it is because she does not care about what I'm doing, only that she gets to snooze beside my desk, and there is great comfort in that. But anyway, then we got to the frustration of interruptions. That took us down a whole separate rabbit trail, and I was griping about being distracted and came to this hollering rant about how I NEED TO JUST GET AWAY, TO SOME REMOTE PLACE WHERE NO ONE KNOWS ME, AND BE THAT CRAZY PERSON WHO IS JUST BY HERSELF, WRITING A BOOK.

If you know anything about Mark, you know he is the best at giving thoughtful, planned gifts. (If you don't know him, believe me, he is the most worth knowing person I have ever met, and maybe if you get to know him well enough, you'll get in on the gift thing). Low and behold, he decided right then and there, as I brandished the blade within five inches of his face, to make the writing trip happen.

And now I can't wait.

And here is something that I'm working on figuring out in the meantime: contentment in the fact that there is only one thing that defines me, and that's the fact that I have Jesus; I'm his, and He is mine. Whether or not I write does not ultimately matter, though I do believe that writing stories is my calling. I'm betting that most of the writing process, with is really just a long course of refinement, like life, is because it's how He is making me different and more like him all the time. I'm working on a short story right now with such a bad case of writer's block it gives me a headache every day around five, and I keep waiting for the Muse to return, my lucky Irishman, but I am trying to simply enjoy it. After all, the real fun of writing is wrestling with the sentences, the paragraphs, the dialogues, filling them with words that are occasionally and miraculously perfect. It is the fun of creating a story, the beginning, the drama, the end. The characters, how they change and get better - I guess it is all very circular.

twenty-five and tardy.

2011-06-03T18:56:00.005Z

I promised to post this yesterday, but I didn't get around to it. Apologies.

In honor of my twenty-fifth birthday, here is a lengthy post about my twenty-five favorite books. It's kind of long, so read at your own volition. People ask me all the time for book recommendations, so consider the following my reccs:

1. East of Eden by John Steinbeck. While the rest of the list will not follow in descending order, this is my all-time favorite novel. Everything I have read of Steinbeck is written as nearly to perfection as I imagine fictional writing can be, but this story in particular captured me the first time. I have read it again and again, and each time it is simultaneously new and familiar. The theme that runs throughout is the story of Cain and Abel, but it is explored in the intertwined lives of a few families in the Salinas Valley in California. My favorite written character in all of fiction so far is Samuel Hamilton, who exists in this book. The narration is brilliant, the dialogue is accurate and the discussions are rich. The story is gut-wrenching and satisfyingly lengthy. It’s a bit daunting to look at because it is really thick, but once I was into it, I kept hoping that it would never end.

2. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. It was a fluke that I even brought this book home from Borders several months ago, but I picked it up because the cover is catchy, and read the first pages—a bird’s eye view of New York City on one particular morning, with the focus eventually narrowing in on a tightrope walker making his way across his thread plank between the World Trade Center towers. Again, it was the narration that got me. The book is a weave of vignettes, similar to the movies Crash or Love Actually, where the focus changes with each chapter, and the background characters move to the foreground, and visa versa. It is a brilliant, brilliant book. When I finished, I sat there just staring at the back cover for a long time. McCann is an Irish writer, and his Irish-ness comes through in the book. Irish lit is probably my favorite genre.

3. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. A.L. is hilarious. Everything she writes—from her memoirs in Traveling Mercies to her fiction, and back again to this book, an instruction manual for writers—is doused in humor. Every thing I have ever read of hers has made me laugh the whole way through. In college I took a writing course where the professor had us read a chapter from Bird by Bird called “Shitty First Drafts.” Later, I “borrowed” this book from a dear friend’s parents’ library, and admittedly never returned it because a. I moved away from that area and never went back to their house and b. I didn’t want to give it up. (I did admit this to Susannah later, volunteering guiltily to mail the book back to her folks, but she assured me they wouldn’t miss it…) The great thing about A.L.’s work, aside from her way with humor, is that it is strung together with great understanding and emotion. This was the first book I read about the craft and process of writing, and it filled me up because I realized that I am not the only person who thinks the way I think, who watches the world and stores up observations for plot ideas in the future. She has some pretty interesting thoughts on Jesus too, which I appreciate.

4. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. If you ask my sister what my biggest gripe with writing is, she’ll tell you it is dialogue. I cannot stand dialogue that would never actually be said, and I am my own biggest dialogue critic. I spend more time reading my written dialogues aloud during the editing process than any other thing because if dialogue is bad, then the whole book is rotten. Bad dialogue pulls you out of the story and reminds you that you’re just reading a book. Dialogue should immerse you into the story and make it MORE REAL. This book has great dialogue! That’s not why I love it, though. Plenty of books have great dialogue. I loved this novel because the story was so creative and colorful, it was so fun to read, it was the perfect balance of love story and other story. It’s about a traveling circus in the 1930s, and the details are so far out, so interesting, and so well-written. (As a disclaimer, I read this book long before there was mention of a movie and loved it then. I have not seen the movie yet, but I’m going to go when it comes to the $2.50 movie theater this week… I heard the movie was OK. The book is way better than that. Great beach read, but not in the brainless-blonde-romance kind of way.)

5. Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling. I.adore.every.single.one. There is really no need for me to go into great detail, since you all probably know, but I will say this: When Mark and I got married, he had never read the books. I spent months 1-15 of our marriage reading each and every book to him aloud, and we both fell in love with the series, for me, the third time. It was so fun, and we capped it all off with a trip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter last fall. If you haven’t given in, just do it. Even if you’re thirty years old you will love it. Just got my sister in law to read the series, and she loved it. Books three and five are my favorite I think.

6. Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas. A biography of the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who lived through the Nazi occupation of Germany during the second World War. Bonhoeffer had dedicated his life to studying the life of Jesus, teaching and studying theology, but could not turn a blind eye to the rise of Hitler in Germany. Along with a band of others, Bonhoeffer was part of one of the assassination plots to bring down the Third Reich, a plot which was ultimately unsuccessful and which led to his death in a concentration camp. The story is unbelievably inspiring, to see someone who followed Jesus so closely, who clung to the Beatitudes fiercely, and who lived a radical life. This book stirred my soul so deeply, and I would recommend it to anyone.

7. The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. One of Bonhoeffer’s theological works. One of the first books I read in high school that really challenged me on what it means to follow Jesus. Probably my favorite book on the Christian life.

8. Dubliners by James Joyce. A collection of short stories that take place in the city of Dublin, Ireland. I read this book in high school for AP English and gobbled it up. The brevity of each story line is refreshing and allowed me to digest the stories one by one. The writing, again, is probably why I love it so, and the fact that I read at the beginning of my love of literature. I have since tried to enjoy Joyce, Portrait of the Artist, Ulysses, but I just couldn’t get into those books. But Dubliners… that’s a different story.

9. 95 Poems by e.e. cummings. I am not hugely invested in the world of poetry, but I do enjoy about a fourth of that which I run across, and in college I loved the poetry classes I took—both to study and to write it. However, (this is a huge however), I adore the poetry of e.e. cummings. I enjoy every single one of his poems, even if I have no idea what the hell he’s talking about, which does happen more often than I care to admit. My brother and sister in law gave me the complete works of e.e. cummings a few years ago for my birthday, and it is a centerpiece on my desk, but my first anthology was 95 Poems. I read and re-read and pulled apart every one of those ninety-five poems, and loved every second. Kaili read i love you much(most beautiful darling) in my wedding (#45), and I have memorized more lines from the poems of that anthology than perhaps any other book other than the Bible. These poems are PERFECT.

10. A Voice in the Wind (series) by Francine Rivers. I do not read Christian fiction often, except on a strong recommendation. My mom read this series a long time ago, and I finally read it the summer before I went off to college. It is a three-book series that takes place in the thirty years after Jesus’s death, in Israel. It is a fictional story about the persecution of the early church, the relationships between different people groups, the Romans, the nation of Israel, the Christians… what could have taken place, based on historical documentation of what did take place. It is SO good. Especially books 1 & 2.

11. The Glass Castle by Jeanette Wall. This memoir of Jeanette Wall’s bizarre life is incredible. I read it on a sail boat in the Virgin Islands last summer and it captivated me wholly. She is the oldest of three children in a family where the parents just didn’t quite know how to parent. There is humor and so much feeling, and the story is so triumphant, while also realistic. Whenever I read a true story of a real person’s great triumph, it blows me away. READ THIS BOOK if you haven’t.

12. Stern Men by Elizabeth Gilbert. Eat, Pray, Love obviously got a lot of press, and it seems like it was one of those books that you either love or you hate. I know a lot of people that hated it. I happened to love it, mostly because the third of it when she is in Italy was SO fun for me to read, having been in Italy myself, and re-living all of those weird Italy-isms along with this narrator that made me feel like I was back there. That pizza—somehow she nailed it. I went to see Elizabeth Gilbert speak in Winston-Salem about two years ago, and her presentation moved me so deeply, and encouraged me to continue writing. And she talked about this book, Stern Men, and how it was re-released after E,P,L because obviously at that point it would sell better. I bought it and LOVED IT. It is a down-to-earth, somewhat fantastical, humorous, quirky, lovely story about lobster fishing islands off the coast of Maine. Sounds strange, but she actually moved up there for a time to study and learn the trade, the lingo, the people. It’s brilliant.

13. On Writing by Stephen King. This book, like Lamott’s BbyB, is a book about the art of writing, but it is peppered with tons of anecdotes from Stephen King’s own life and process getting to his height of fame as a writer. Granted, not a lot of writers become bajillionaires like Stephen King, but this book was so life giving for me. It was another case of “Wow, somebody feels how I feel, knows what it’s like to edit, knows the emotions, knows the disappointment and exhaustion of being rejected time and time again.” The best part of this book is how he describes his first acceptances for publication. I keep saying this word, but it was wholly INSPIRING.

14. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. A while ago, maybe two or three years, I read The Hobbit. I liked it a lot. Maybe not top 25, but it was really enjoyable. Of course I have seen the movie trilogy, but never felt inspired to read the series. Well a friend of mine said that he had a friend who had read the series something like sixty times, and I thought, “Well, hot dang. I guess I ought to try.” I did, from about October to December of last year, and enjoyed it so much. I became so immersed in those books that I thought about them often even when I was not reading. The books are quite different from the movies in many ways, which made it more fun to read. I love the stories for the writing, for the allegorical quality and for the way they bring you into a world that we’ll never live in, but which I wish we could.

15. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. This series has to follow the last, since it is also an allegory of the Bible and God’s love for humanity, and was (as I am sure you all know, but I have to say it anyway) written while Tolkien was writing about the battle for Middle Earth, the two men being great friends and contemporaries in the world of literature of that time in the mid-1900s. My mom read the series aloud to my sister and me when we were kids, and then I re-read the series in college, and it meant just as much to me then as it did when I was a child, only in a different way. I think I ought to read the series once a year, but seeing as there are too many books in the world, I might need to spread it out a little further.

16. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. My long-time mentor Mrs. Brennan, my high school AP English teacher, gave me a copy of this book when I graduated from high school and said, “I think you will love it.” She was right. It is about a preacher who takes his family of four girls to the Congo to be missionaries and “convert the natives.” The story is told alternately from the perspectives of the four daughters and the mother as they watch their father descend on a people he knows nothing about to “convert them,” all the while forgetting about his family. The story is brilliant and thrilling and heart-wrenching, and it is so memorable to me even now. As I write this, I realize I need to read it again ☺

17. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. He is just the best. This book, although not quite as beloved to me as EofE, is a beautiful saga of the Joad family, traveling to California during the Dust Bowl to try and find work for their family. The perseverance and camaraderie of the family is both heartening and tragic, and, as usual, the writing is so vivid with words perfectly selected. This book is a good Steinbeck intro—it is a bit shorter than EofE.

18. The Writing Life by Annie Dillard. Much like Bird by Bird and On Writing, so I don’t want to re-iterate. I can’t help it, I just adore good books on writing. I love reading people who feel how I feel because it is actualizing. Here is a quote: “One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better.” As Clyde always says, “That will preach.”

19. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Talk about a daunting book. I stared at this baby for months and months before I finally decided to crack it. It took me several months, which is not usually my manner of reading, but it is so dense. Every chapter is sort of a story on it's own. When I finished it was incredible satisfaction. Sometimes I read classic literature as a duty, and it is painstaking. This, however, was a lot like EofE. The story of Jean Valjean transforming from a thief to a heroic beacon of light is beautiful, and it is no wonder this is considered a classic. Although it is a little overwhelming, I encourage anyone to try it. You can do it! And then, hopefully we can all take a little trip up to NYC and see it on Broadway!

20. The Firm by John Grisham. I usually try to mix up the genres of books I read, and occasionally a CIA or government intrigue novel gets in there, and I love it. I enjoyed this book SO much when I read it the first time, and I’m sure if I started it again, I would love it again. I have read several of Grisham's books, but The Firm is one of my favorite books ever. Another one I could not put down. I could never write literature like this, but I sure do love to read it.

21. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. This is the story of Francie, a little girl growing up poor in Brooklyn, NY. It is not full of drama, or a big event, or travel or important people, but it is the story of one wonderful, interesting, tragic, sweet, dysfunctional family. The brother-sister relationship is excellently described, and I love this book because I could not put it down, which supports the belief I cling to that everyone has a story, and likewise, every life is a brilliant story. Beautiful, perfect words.

22. The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. A good friend gave me this book one year for my birthday. I put off reading it until one day when I didn’t have anything else. It didn’t really seem like my kind of book, until I started reading. It’s the story of a nanny in New York City, working for a wealthy family to take care of their children, run their errands and basically help manage their lives. It is written by former nannies, and the stories and events of the novel are unbelievable in their audacity, humor, and over-the-topness. This book was so entertaining, and also surprisingly deep. It is one of those stories that goes opens the closed doors of families with a great deal of money and power to show the relational family dynamics that are never seen in public.

23. The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy. One of the best. Maybe number two or three on my list. The story is utterly captivating, and the characters are developed so richly, so fully I felt like they could have been my siblings. The story flips between the present day and the wild, lawless childhood of Savannah, Tom (the narrator) and the oldest brother Luke. The whole book points to one terribly tragic event that happened when they were children, and the rest of the narrative builds toward the revelation. I devoured every single page, although there were a few pretty terrible scenes. This book was incredible. However, I did read another Pat Conroy book a little while after, and didn’t like it nearly as much…

24. The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. It's Lewis's idea of what purgatory, or hell if you stay for good, could be like. The narrator finds himself there, and encounters several people he has known on earth. He also encounters George MacDonald, who Lewis has said was the most influential person in his own writing life. In the end, the narrator wakes up to realize it was a dream. This book was very interesting, very thought-provoking in the way some things are, not directly challenging or stating, but showing the ideas through story and allegory. Such an interesting read, just like everything Lewis wrote.

25. Lost Lily by me. I know, it's cheap. Plus, you can't go out and get it to read this summer. But here's the thing, I LOVE THIS BOOK. It may never be published, but it's still one of my favorites. It's about this girl, Elena, who travels to Siena to study abroad during her senior year of college. Before she leaves she finds out that her deceased mother, Lily, also spent time in Siena and while she is there, she begins to trace her mother. The end is good, good good, with a plot twist that gives me chills whenever I read it. It's my second book, but sort of my first real one. I just like it, I'm allowed.

So, there you have it.

Now, on my summer list:

Bel Canto
Sarah's Key
The History of Love
Zorro

Any other ideas? I only want the good stuff...

segway.

2011-05-18T14:00:00.004Z

Yesterday I wrote a pretty good post, full of descriptive detail and hilarious dialogue (true dialogue) from this sketchy interaction I had at Aldi last week. A glitch in the blogosphere deleted this carefully crafted piece of writing, and I did not feel like, nor did I have the time for, re-writing. It was about this seventyish-year-old man that hit on me so blatantly I could have scooped up the pickup lines with a shovel. Sick. Also pretty funny.

On June 2, I turn twenty-five, which in case you are not into elementary math, is a quarter (1/4) of a century. That's significant. I am working on a lengthy blog post that I believe will be pretty enjoyable, even useful. I may not post until then... we shall see how the wind blows.

two years in.

2011-05-02T13:11:00.010Z

On Friday morning, I returned from an early (too early) cycling class at the gym at 7:00, and plopped down Indian style on the floor in front of the TV to watch Prince William and Princess Kate's recessional and presentation. When Mark got back from walking Sidney he found me there, sweaty and Indian style, and shook his head, laughed a little. He watched for a few minutes, then went to get ready for work. As we showered, drank coffee, read Bibles, we kept an eye on the royal parade through London, all the way up to the kiss on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Mark was back in the guest room getting dressed, and I came in.

"Want to know something ridiculous?" I asked, leaning up against the door jam.

"What?" He was tucking in his shirt.

"Watching the wedding makes me feel really happy, like we are living in a world that still has fairy tales. But it also makes me sort of sad because I'm not a princess."

He laughed, gave me a kiss, and said, "You are."

When I got home from work after a very busy day, Mark was in the living room fixing a neon green wheel chair. I was rushing, because we were leaving soon thereafter to head to Wild Dunes near Charleston for the weekend to celebrate our anniversary. I ran into the kitchen to deposit my lunch tupperware, keys, etc. and sitting on the counter was a beautiful bunch of gerber daisies and a pink rose, a sparkly wand, a bag of my favorite candy, and a HUGE card in a pink envelope. I opened it, and it was a Disney princess card, and on the inside said something like, "Who the heck cares about lousy old Kate. YOU are my princess!!"

It's kind of silly, but I nearly choked up because he knows me, and he understands my nuances and my childlike heart, and the fact that when I said that about the wedding earlier in the morning, even though it was borderline absurd, I meant it.

We headed out for the beach around three, and got in around nine after about an hour and a half of nasty Charlotte traffic and a stop for dinner at Panera in North Charleston. Dear friends lent us their condo at Wild Dunes for the weekend, free of charge, and it was a dream. We stayed up real late Friday night, consuming this:

Woke up early, walked, read, drank coffee, laughed, ran around the huge condo like a couple of twelve year olds, watched NHL highlights, lazed around on the beach, and made pancakes. I read Water for Elephants, cover to cover, for the second time because I never remember the details of books (embarrassing, as I write them.)

On Saturday night we went into the city of Charleston, saw one my oldest friends and consumed an unbelievable seafood dinner at Coast, thanks to the anniversary gift of my parents. For the occasion, Mark bought me these:

Thanks to a couple generous anniversary gift donations, most of our trip--the gas, the food, the extras--was paid for. It was an unbelievable surprise to be able to get away, to the beach no less, without stress - a weekend that was planned and drawn up on Thursday! Two days of unclouded sunshine, the familiar comfort of crashing waves, and uninterrupted facetime with my boyfriend was the perfect way to usher us into today...

May 2nd, 2011. Two year anniversary!

thanks.

2011-04-11T15:04:00.004Z

August of 2008 does not seem like that long ago--a few months after I graduated college, living in Greensboro, NC with my pregnant (for the first time) sister, engaged, working at a coffee shop. That was the month I started this blog, and it recently struck me that that was nearly THREE years ago! Time feels suspended, and I don't feel like I have aged at all, much less three years. But I have, and it is real to me most lucidly in the more easy going, less insecure, meeker, hopefully more refined quality of my heart. A wine that has aged a few years is better. If it ages several dozen years and is kept well, it can be exquisite. Hope for the future.

But when I realized that n2sh.blogspot has been around for that long, I was overcome with thankfulness for those that read it. As much as I hate to admit it, much of my courage in writing comes from feedback, rather than self-assurance. Recently, I have been given the gift (perhaps in response for my desperate prayers for SOME KIND OF ENCOURAGEMENT GOOD GRIEF) of a few n2sh readers mentioning that they read this blog. It is irrational the vote of confidence this is, like hearing that someone loves your singing voice after they overhear you in church and you suddenly wonder if you could go somewhere with it. But to know that people visit once, and then return is unbelievable to me! Why?? I don't imagine anyone actually typing the URL into their browser, but I guess you must (Yes, YOU) unless it's a link you have clicked or, I can hardly imagine, is a tab or a favorite (unless you're my sister, because I know she's tabbed me).

Anyway, I wanted to say thanks. Especially recently, hearing through the grapevine, or hearing to my ears, some votes of confidence. I really, really appreciate it.

Tomorrow night I am going to see the author Emily Giffin present at Wake Forest University (of which she is a graduate) on her book series beginning with Something Borrowed. I don't typically read chick lit, but picked up the book at the used bookshop for three bucks. I'm excited because my current book project, Roma Roma, is something that I am VERY excited about, and is a muted form of chick lit. I'm double crossing my fingers that I get to meet her and, more importantly her agent (Theresa Park). Please, please send prayers up for me tomorrow!

just in case you wanted to be inspired...

2011-04-06T19:09:00.002Z

You should read my sister, Hannah's, blog. She is level-headed, straightforward, honest, tender and bright. She has absolutely the cutest family in the United States of America, and she posts lots of great pictures.

www.hansdigginin.blogspot.com

The latest post is about her new son, William, and the beginning of a 3-year journey to correct a foot problem he was born with. Forrest Gump style...

sweet, sleepy saturday

2011-04-02T21:54:00.002Z

It is a perfect Saturday. This morning the forecast said rain, but that didn’t happen. It’s gorgeous and windy outside, the kind of day that looks warm from the cozy inside of your house, with the sun creating lovely mirrored reflections on the hoods of cars parked out on the street. There is a muffled buzz created by the lawn manicurist a few doors down, edging the yard of the house with the lime green door that is for sale by owner. He has been out there all day, but I don’t think that sounds terrible on a day like this.

Here, inside, it is quiet but for these sounds: the tick-tock of the grandfather clock that hangs on the wall in the living room, the wind moving the great, heavy branches of the pine tree in the front yard that looks a lot like the Christmas Tree in Who-Ville—the one the Grinch takes down. There is also the sound of wind chimes from my neighbor’s front porch, a sound that I love and I imagine the quiet neighbor also loves, although I rarely see him. There is now the sound of my fingers clicking the white keys of this laptop. It is gloriously quiet, and yet there is this soft symphony of sounds.

I’ve painted my nails, and am reading a book called I Don’t Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson. Two days ago I picked up The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle from Ed McKay’s, the used book store, which was strangely placed on the Free Books shelf. When I asked why, the clerk said it was because they don’t keep hardback copies of books published more than 2 years ago. This book is in mint condition, except for the big black X slashed in sharpee on the paper jacket (which is a kind of sickening, tragic practice in my opinion—give the book away, fine, but don’t slash the hell out of it). This is a book I have had great intentions of reading because it is so highly acclaimed as a work of great and epic fiction, so I opened it nobly. However, I just finished re-reading my favorite book, Steinbeck’s East of Eden, which is, again in my opinion, the greatest novel ever written, but which is also very deep, heavy, and powerful. And long. I realized that I wanted some easy-to-digest, enjoyable literature that made me laugh. So I dropped Edgar in the clean laundry basket, and picked up Person’s novel. I’m loving it, and it’s in the same style as my current project, Roma Roma. Great inspiration, great camaraderie.

Usually I can’t enjoy a day like this—it’s like I’ve got a motor that doesn’t turn off, only idles. But lately I’ve been on the go a lot. Today it feels good to sit here in my little brick house with my big dog and napping husband and read under the windows.

whoa month.

2011-03-27T05:10:00.003Z

This has been the whoa month. From the love seat in my dear friend K.’s apartment in the Mission district of San Francisco, I am listening to footsteps over my head and cars just out of the window. We spent the day in the de Young museum, looking at dresses in the Balenciaga exhibit, traipsing through Golden Gate park and walking down near the Ferry building all the way to Fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli Square, took a hike out to a great little Mexican place, and are getting ready to head out for a little more fun. This coveted five-day weekend in S.F. comes on the heels of a 24 hour trip to Baltimore to see my Grampa’s 90th birthday speech, a weekend of digging up our front and back yards to plant spring grass, which most people swear will be a failure, and my sister’s second successful baby delivery! And that is a story…

Early the morning of March 13, Hannah and Josh went to the hospital because H. was fairly certain it was the baby hour. They sat for a while, and when they were finally admitted, sent a text saying today is the day. By noon, Mark and I (plus Kyle) were there, along with my ma and J., waiting for labor. Ma and I planned to be present for the halo moment, and obviously the boys planned to flee far, far away. By half past three there was no "progress" (let's keep this PG) so M., K. and I left to run back to H&J's house to grab some things. While at the house gathering the requested materials, we received a text from J. saying that she was about to begin "pushing." We flew like three bats out of the mouth of hell to the car, and drove 30 mph over the speed limit to get back to the hospital. Silence in the car--no radio. Watching for cops, me praying that I would not miss this monumental event.

They dropped me off at the front door, where I jumped before the car even came to a full and complete stop, and ran into the hospital. Of course I had no idea where to go, and frantically reading all of the signs, sort of shouted at this little nurse pushing a cart, "Babies?!" She looked at me blankly-- "Where are the babies?!" She pointed down a hall, through which I began a sprint. I blew past several people, who all stared at me, and turned a corner with a screech (in cowboy boots) where a security guard was standing. Bad alignment of circumstances. He shouted, "Ma'am, please walk!" To which I replied, "MY SISTER IS HAVING A BABY!" To which he replied, "You still need to walk." At this point, I'm buzzing the little intercom thing that lets you into the birthing unit. "Room number?" "168." "I'm sorry, but the woman in that room is in labor." "I UNDERSTAND THAT. I'M HER SISTER! I'M SUPPOSED TO BE IN THERE!" (Capitalization denotes shouting) Door buzzes and I take of running. Hear the security guard somewhere behind me yelling for me to SLOW DOWN, which I do, for a few paces, and then take off at a sprint again, hear him coming after me, screech around the corner and fly into Hannah's room like a psychopath. I walk in, labor is HAPPENING, and the doc looks at me and says, "Were you running?"

And then William Kyle was born... Good job, sissy :)

march.

2011-03-01T18:35:00.002Z

Mark and I were supposed to have company for dinner tonight. I bought all the ingredients for this very suave Asian Sesame Chicken dish, and I was ready. My friend Megan called at 6:45 (they were supposed to come at 7) to tell me that her husband was sick, and they'd have to take a rain check. Bummer.

But now, I'm sitting in the writing room with the toad lamp on, which only casts a minimal yellowish glow over the room. The overhead light is offensive and prohibited. Mark and Sidney are curled up in Sidney's bed beside my perfect little desk, and we're listening to Frank Sinatra. I made the meal, and we ate half of it, and put the leftovers in the fridge for lunches this week. We did the dishes together, and filmed a video of Sid and me dancing around the kitchen. Having nothing to do is turning out to be quite a good time.

March used to be my least favorite month. It has always felt like a month-long headache to me, with lots of rain and gray days, inbetween temperatures where you're too hot if you wear socks and close toed shoes, but too cold in flip-flops. April is a little better because my dad's birthday is in April, and April is the month before May. May is an unarguably wonderful month, mostly because of flowers and Hannah's birthday.

In N. Carolina, the trees have started blooming and there are long successions of cloudless, sunny days. Granted, I tend to forget that on the gray ones, but I am being cleansed from this antipathy for March. maybe I will even like March. That's progress, folks. Hannah is going to have a baby any day now, whose birthday will be in March, and Mark's parents are coming to visit in a few weeks to help us grow a lawn in place of the straw that lays in brambles all over the front, and the dirt in the back.

Lately I have been writing a new book. It's called Roma Roma, and it's about this catering company macrocosmically, and this thirty-year-old single mom named Rosy microcosmically. It is written in first person, which is a new challenge. I love this book already, ninety pages in. I'm also sending out Lost Lily week by week, receiving copious silences and rejections. However, bright spot, I got a minimally personalized response from an agent this week who said, "Many thanks for sending me this material, which I read with interest."

SHE THINKS IT'S INTERESTING. Praise God. I can step back because this is a step forward. "This is a totally subjective view," she said.

It feels good to be in March this year - organic and rich, like good soil.

valentines day after.

2011-02-16T02:46:00.004Z

We couldn't really do the whole 'valentine's day' thing yesterday, so we did it tonight. This was my v-day surprise for Mark...

my baby brother.

2011-02-08T19:37:00.003Z

Kyle is five years younger than me, six in school years. I asked God for months for a baby brother when I was five, and when he was born I begged God to take him back because I wanted primary access to my mom's lap again. As an elementary and middle school kid, I treated Kyle pretty terribly because I was selfish mostly, and because he was an annoying little brother. And then, mid-way through high school, I realized that he was actually kind of cool. By the time I graduated high school I was downright devastated to leave him. He is 19 now. He is six foot four or five, and he is my dear, dear friend. He is the only person I have that fills this one specific place in my life. I am not sure when he switched from little brother to best pal, but he did. And sometimes, when we are driving from Winston-Salem to Chapel Hill because he slept over on a Saturday night and he has to get back to school, and we are talking about swimming and girls, and marriage and stress, and our family and our dreams, I have a mental about-face and think how uncanny it is to be best friends with your siblings. Both of them.

Kyle is a swimmer for Carolina and this weekend kicked some serious Duke and NCState tail. Here is a video. He is in lane 2--far away from the camera. He won :)

rejection and starting over.

2011-01-19T19:22:00.004Z

Now that I have come to the end* of the writing and editing process of this novel, re-named Lost Lily, I am in what I like to call the endless winter. The season of searching for an agent, sending letters cold turkey to people who have nice offices with windows overlooking Times Square. At least this is what I picture when I am depressed and generally disenchanted with the search, hopeless, and totally self-effacing about my ability to write anything at all.

People often ask me, "So what happens now? You get it published?" I usually kind of laugh, maybe sigh internally, and say, "Perhaps."

Once you have edited the stew out of your manuscript, taken it to the point of perfection, and then sat down to edit it once again, you may be ready to search for an agent. Once you have secured an agent, he or she has to job of pitching the idea to a publishing company. At this point, I believe I am ready, but I may end up back at the drawing board.

I drafted a query letter as well as a synopsis of the novel. The query is a brief, spirited pitch of my idea. It does not summarize the entire story, but rather gives a summation and a kind of hook. It says, "HERE I AM! This is why my novel is worth reading." Authors often send queries to dozens, if not hundreds of agents before they get a bite. The query letter was the hardest thing for me to write. To sum up my passion and my plot in less than 200 words was a high challenge and I spent about 25 hours working on it. I recently re-read the letter, and I think it stinks. I need to write a new one. So it goes.

A synopsis gives the entire plot, start to finish. It does not tease the reader or keep any secrets hidden. This is the agent's way of quickly reading through the drama to see if the story is any good. This, too, is very short, but also needs to read in some way as the novel reads, needs to contain the spirit of the story.

Each agent has his or her own preferences about how and what they want to read in a query. Everyone wants the letter. Some want the letter and the synopsis. Some want the letter and the first ten pages. Others want the letter, the synopsis, the first 50 pages and the god parent-ship of your firstborn son. Some want e-mail, no attachments please, and others want good old fashioned United States Postal Service, Sir.

To date I have sent approximately 14 query packages. Have heard back from six, I think, all shaking their heads "no" in one way or another. Some of the letters are canned, and they start with "Dear Author semi-colon" One actually said "Dear Virginia," which made my heart skip a beat, but it was also a thanks-but-I-don't-think-your-project-is-what-we're-looking-for letter. I don't have hard feelings, and in a way I even love this part of it, this sweaty uphill climb. And as you read this blog you might feel sorry for me, like this is impressive work, but it really isn't because this is what every novelist does, especially if she has never published anything before. I have to admit, though, last night when I got the DearAuthor letter from an agency I really really liked, I was bummed and did not very much enjoy the episode of NCIS we happened to be watching.

But here is the brightness: Yesterday I stumbled upon a video of a speech made by J.K. Rowling at the Harvard commencement ceremony in 2008. J.K. Rowling is a hero and I listened to that speech and was lifted up! This is what she said, fragmented and patched together, verbatim:

"Poverty is not an enobling experience. Poverty itself is romanticized by fools... Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential... Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I re-built my life...It is impossible to live without failing at something unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you fail by default... As is a tale, so is life. Not how long it is, but how good it is is what matters."

Now J.K. Rowling's rock bottom was way far down below sea level and I don't dare begin to compare my life to hers, because my life is pretty rosey, but here is what really struck me: POVERTY IS NOT AN ENOBLING EXPERIENCE. It's true. And in some ways, this writing--this exhausting, passionate, furious work of writing--that amounts to ZERO money (to date) and ZERO credibility feels a little like poverty. And it is not enobling, only pressing to keep on.

But as I digest, this is the gold that is left after it has been panned out of the dirt: I love this. I love to write. It is the only thing I have ever wanted to do. It is my dream, it is my passion, and I am doing it. This is the reason I am doing it! Because I LOVE IT.

J.K. said that when she was totally stripped all she had was a little typewriter and a big idea. Mmm, that's good folks.

On Wednesday I finished the final edits and cried at the end. Not because I was done, but because the ending really moves me. I sent the manuscript to my friend's sweet mom, Jody, who owns a print shop downtown. She prints my stuff for free, because she believes in me, and she tells me every time I swing by to pick up the pages that I can't quit. She printed it for me Wednesday. I went to Target and purchased the prettiest binder I could find. Lost Lily is sitting, bound the cheap way, on my desk. It's sort of my first real, perfected, official novel. Then, after lunch, I started outlining the next one. I have got a big idea and I love to write.

*"the end" can be only loosely applied to this stage of the book process, as I do believe I could continue to edit Lost Lily over and over again until I wore holes in the keyboard of my Mac. This is a transient "end," if even that.

desk satisfaction.

2011-01-05T21:11:00.004Z

I should be editing.

Once when I was roaming the blogosphere I clicked through the posts on this one lady's writing blog and saw one post that I loved. It was a photograph of her desk, followed by a dissection of what was in the picture. For months I have intended to mimic this post, and today, as I procrastinate, it seems like the perfect opportunity.

This may seem inane to some readers, so feel free to move on. No offense taken.

See, this is where I live. The desk itself, of which you can see only the top, is the best gift I've ever been given. It was Mark's wedding gift to me. A white, antique writer's desk. Just what I could not have even manifested in my most perfect dreams. It is slightly tilted, with a sitting space that fits my legs, height and width, to perfection. The drawers stick, but I don't care. I love it.

Camouflaged, my little MacBook (her name is Dora) holds every word I have ever typed since college. Both manuscripts, my entire digital photograph library, my music (the last link, after my iPod was stolen out of my car in the driveway), a variety of "Favorite" tabs of blogs and writing resources I follow, and our budget. Dora and I have spent only God knows how many hours together in silence, and rambling.

The books are my go-tos. The favorites tab of my book collection. The complete works of e.e. cummings. Poet perfect. Stephen King's, Annie Dillard's and Anne Lamott's memoirs on writing, all of which have been of colossal importance to me in my pursuit of a career in the craft. East of Eden, Steinbeck's best, my favorite novel of all time including my favorite character of all time, Samuel Hamilton. The Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus, which has been a resource of great value as I tap my relatively shallow barrel of vocabulary trying to write with accuracy and clarity. A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver and Writing to Change the World by Mary Pipher.

They are held up by the most beautiful spinning globe bookends, a Christmas gift this year from Mark.

There is a small bud vase with a vine rooted in water, to link me to the outdoors. A photograph of Mark, with his Red Sox hat, old faithful, and a bit of Cannoli cream on his lip, smiling his winning grin with his tilted smile. My favorite picture of him, aside from one on our wedding day that hangs on the wall in the living room. Just in front of the photo is this quote, from EofE:

"I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is indestructable."

I love that quote, and I think I believe it.

There is also a photograph of my brother, Kyle, and me when we were kids--he was three or four, I was eight or nine. It's black and white, and we're sitting on this old red checkered sectional sofa surrounded by dozens of stuffed animals and we are laughing.

There is a little pink address book and stamps. Legal envelopes that I use to send out SASE's when I submit my manuscripts to agents. A box of thank-you notes yet to be written. Twenty-two cents. Bert's Bee's Medicated lip balm (because it's winter people). A list of agents, somewhat marked up, with dates and notes on submissions I have sent, and those I have yet to send, querying To Light a Thousand Windows. There is a candle, a paper weight, a Christmas card that says, "It was her opinion that true Merriment required good hot chocolate and extravagant amounts of tinsel." There is a copy of my query letter, an envelope of receipts from 2009 and 2010 (large purchases only) and a pencil sharpener, though I rarely if ever use pencils.

I think that's it, and above the desk is the picture of Emebet, the little girl we sponsor who was born on May 2nd, our wedding day, and lives in Ethiopia. I should have moved the Thesaurus so you could see her.

I considered tidying up a bit before writing this post, but decided not to. I am a writer and this is who I am, clutter and all.

a lot of stuff i don't deserve.

2011-01-03T15:21:00.003Z

Since I didn't get to see my parents during Christmas, I flew down on Thursday to spend New Years with them in Florida. It was a breezy, relaxing, reading, sleeping, eating, running, sunning, chatting kind of time. Glorious, really. Mark stayed up in NC and hosted a bunch of out-of-town friends for the holiday (planned after I booked my flight to FL...) He took care of the dog, gave our bed to our friends and slept on the couch, cooked food, made coffee, did the whole "hostess" thing, only as a host. I was impressed!

Yesterday I flew home. There were some irritating complications with the flight and I should have been home by 3:45. I ended up pulling into our neighborhood at 5:30, generally tired and frustrated. There was a temptation to call Mark and see if he had at least put our sheets in the washing machine, but I resisted, remembering that where he had spent the past week working, cleaning, hosting, etc., I had been laying around reading the biography of Deitrich Bonhoeffer and drinking wine. On Ebert Street, this one house still has all of their Christmas decor up. I thought, "Ugh, if only I didn't have to take down the tree some night this week after work." And dinner... I did not feel like making dinner.

As I neared the house I saw (GASP) the Christmas tree undone and laying on its side on the curb! When I walked inside, the entire house was spotless. Even dust-free. Vaccuumed. Some ornaments were already boxed, while others sat waiting to be sorted and organized. The beds were both made, with clean sheets. The bathroom was clean and there was even a new package of toilet paper!

Mark heard me come in from the back of the house in the kitchen and said, "Hey babe! Watch this." And he showed me how he had taught Sid the Dog how to sit down on command! And stay! Can you believe this??

Of course, I was totally flabbergasted by this extraordinary feat of love. "What would you like me to make for dinner?" I asked, now delighted to do something for him, as he had done SO much for me.

"I already made dinner." He winked.

I stared.

"Salmon! Your favorite."

merry christmas.

2010-12-24T17:47:00.008Z

Does it feel like Christmas? I’m not sure I know what Christmas feels like. It changes by the year. This year I live in my own house with my own tree and my own nativity. It feels strange. Mark, Sidney and I are in Pittsburgh this year for Christmas, which is something I have never done, been away from the five Fickers and a golden retriever on Christmas morning. It is all very different, but it is Christmas. It is December twenty-fourth. I think maybe the hard part of growing up is figuring out where you fit.

But I have been pondering this “feeling of Christmas,” and it’s coming together.

In college, when I studied abroad, we backpacked in France, Switzerland and Austria. I wore flip flops—leather Rainbows—the whole time. This idiocy resulted in a stress fracture in the lower bone of my second toe on the right foot. It still hurts, especially in the winter. And the toe that I broke kicking the foot of my bed last year also hurts. They flare up in the winter when it’s cold. Our new house is the perfect house. It is old, though, and the floors are this beautiful railway station wood with staple marks. The floors are so cold that my feet are usually white by bed time. Well Mark and I celebrated Christmas with one gift apiece, our dog, and some Christmas music in the background the other night at the foot of our tree. And you know what he did? He got me these unbelievable Eskimo slippers from L.L. Bean. The suede moccasin type, with fur spilling out on the sides and through the stitching at the toe. For the first time, my toes don’t ache in the cold, because they’re warm and the faux fir cushions them. I forget about the little slivers in the bones when I’m wearing the slippers. I think this is the spirit of Christmas.

And we got this dog--as, if you read 2 posts ago, you know was a small step for humanity and a GIANT leap for Ginny--who has surprised me by being perhaps the best thing that has happened to me in a long time. I didn't realize how much I would love the never being alone, even when I'm writing at home in the afternoon and it is so quiet in the house because the heat is resting. Before, I would become so isolated in being alone in the silence of writing that I would have this unbelievable urge to SCREAM. Seriously, I would just want to yell to hear a sound in the house. Ever since Sidney came home, I don't have that because I talk to her periodically. I run ideas by her, tell her about my word choices for dialogue and narrative. She usually looks at me and sort of tilts her little head. She is an active listener and I am never alone now. I think this is the spirit of Christmas.

My iPod got stolen out of my car in October, which is obviously terrible, but my mom loaned me hers so I could listen to Christmas music all December. We had a dinner party on Monday and there was a leftover bottle of Cabernet. My sister got to go see Amy Grant in concert, singing the songs we grew up listening to all our lives for the entire month of December. We got a gorgeous 9-foot Fraser Fir from Food Lion for $29.99. Gift cards to restaurants in Winston-Salem so we can go out to eat! The recent remission of my awful case of post-novel writers block and the return of my muse, who is a small Irish man in my head. Three inches tall--material for another post another day. These are all the spirit of Christmas.

And Immanuel, God with us. That, chiefly, is the spirit of Christmas. Merry Christmas, and may the increase of His peace be with you this Christmas.

i thought i would never see these grades again...

2010-12-14T19:56:00.002Z

I am terrible at math. TERRIBLE. And science. And anything left brain oriented, really. Math and science teachers in high school liked me because I was polite, but were generally irritated by my inability to understand concepts. Pre-Calculus was a nightmare and even Nutrition Science, a blow-off Senior year elective, required lab experiments and reports that effected more academic stress than Advanced Placement English Literature with T.B.

It is exam week at the school where I tutor and teach, and last week I tried to help one of my students study for her Pre-Calculus mid-term. She had this big packet with graphs, equations, logarithms, strange runes and cuneiform I swear I have never seen before. We sort of plodded through, consulting Google for help several times, all the while me spouting out fragments of apologies for my great inability to be any help AT ALL.

"Do you have to take math in college?" she asked me suddenly. She wants to be a writer. That's my girl.

I frowned. "Yes. Well, I did. One course. I took Elementary Statistics with S.G. It was a requirement to take one Math course, and Elem. Stat. was reported to be the easiest."

I continued to tell her how I not only took this course, but I came darn close to failing. I used to drag my butt out of bed freshman year, when I still thought I should major in Communications (BAH! That's a laugh) to traipse up the hill by the lake and over to the math building, where I would stop at the vending machine for strawberry pop tarts and then rest my head in my hands, elbows on the desk, and LITERALLY hold my eyelids open with my fingers. Shamelessly.

It is a gift of grace that I passed that course, and in relating this story to C. I decided to e-mail S.G., five years later.

Here is the e-mail I sent:

Dear Mr. G., (Insert: I obviously started out wrong by not referring to him as "Professor Extrordinaire")

You won't remember me, but I took your 8 am Tuesday/Thursday Elementary Statistics course my sophomore year at JMU, in 2005. I struggled MASSIVELY in that course, recieved test scores of 27% and 48% or something awful like that. I was an English Literature major with a concentration in Creative Writing and it was such a struggle for me to understand math.

You passed me in that course with a "C," a grade that I probably (or most definitely) did not deserve. I wanted to say THANK YOU for having grace on me. I am a writer now, working on my second fictional novel, and I most certainly NEVER use math. I also work at a high school teaching and tutoring mostly English and Writing, but occasionally a student will ask for help studying for a Pre-Calc test or something, and I tell them about you and your class and how I bawled when I got that 27%.

It's all in the past, but I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciated you, what a great teacher you are in spite of my idiocy, and that I'll never forget you-

Have a great holiday,

Ginny Evans. (used to be Ginny Ficker)

Later, I recieved this reply:

Hi Ginny,
Thanks for your kind message. Using ecampus I was able to find your photo, although this service for showing photos was not available back in 2004. I almost vaguely recognize you, after seeing your photo. I retrieved your old grades, and your final score was a 72.2%. You had only one absence (9/23/2004), and I slightly bumped your grade up to a 72.5%, which rounds to a 73%, a "C"! Below are your grades, which may remind you of "auto-grade," which I still use in addition to "auto-attendance" and (my new one) "auto-cell-phone" (for keeping records of students who brandish a cell phone during class).

HW1 Ex1 HW2 Ex2 HW3 HW4 Ex3 HW5 HW6 FEx
Maximum 10 100 10 100 10 10 100 10 10 100
Ficker Ginny 7 80 9 80 10 9 46 10 10 69

I looks as though your one bad grade was a 46, but I've seen much worse, and I'm sure you have too. It was good hearing from you, and I hope everything is going well for you.

Best wishes,
S.G.

It made my day. First of all, the fact that he found my entire profile in his gradebook catacombs is historic. Furthermore, the fact that he RECOGNIZED the fuzzy picture is even more hilarious. Yes, probably because I was the kook holding my eyes open. (Sorry, S.G.) Then, add on this sweet, encouraging word. Made me want to e-mail every teacher I have ever known and tell them to follow my blog! Look me up on facebook! LET'S BE FRIENDS NOW THAT I'M AN "ADULT!"

If you have a similar story, I recommend e-mailing. You never know what you're gonna get....

i wouldn't say i'm a 'dog person.'

2010-12-09T15:53:00.007Z

Historically, Mark is the most difficult person to shop for at birthdays and Christmastime because he doesn't want anything. I've tried suggesting things, new clothes, new technology, new music. He is always polite, sort of shrugs and smiles and says, "That's fine." I think maybe the only thing he has ever actually asked for specifically, besides a new pair of football cleats, is a dog. So you can imagine my frustration, being someone who thought I might get away with a dog-free existence when I moved out of my parents' house. I am EASY to shop for and Mark has given me incredible gifts--trips, jewelry, devices and clothes to keep me warm in winter most commonly--so I wanted to be able to do the same.

But I did not want a dog.

Fast forward a year and a half. And meet Sidney.

It had become an issue as much of my not wanting the inconvenience/mess/no sleep effect/DOG HAIR/massive warm body in the little house that could weigh as much as me (God forbid), as an issue of resistance. I realize this now. How juvenile. About three months ago, as I sat on the white rocker on the front porch with my feet tucked up under me, drinking coffee and reading my Bible, it occurred to me that Mark doesn't just want a dog. He needs a dog. A pal to train and take care of, to own and love. He needs a friend to come home to who wants to play, throw a ball, run around the house. This will NEVER be me, thus, the dog. Furthermore, it occurred to me how my introverted husband would be blessed to be loved unconditionally by one who wouldn't ask him details of his day, what he's thinking when he isn't talking, or if he would mind deep cleaning the bathroom, pretty please. The dog doesn't care if there is toothpaste splatter on the mirror.

I wanted an English Golden. He wanted a Greater Swiss Mountain Dog. We went with the Swissy, considering all of the above. The dog would be for him. I specifically remember saying to someone, "I'm sure the dog will hate me and love Mark. I'll probably be so hard on her."

Well, well, well. Not so. I submit to the fact that I was wrong. I have fallen in love.

Wouldn't you? I mean, OH.MY.GOSH. look at that dog. Little Sidney Evans is this incredible, tiny, floppy, clumsy, easy-going foot heater with massive paws that makes me laugh just by looking at her, and I've transformed into a gushy care bear of a human when I'm around her. I promise that I will not become a person who discusses her pet as if she is a child prodigy, nor will my blog become a platform for Sidney worship, but let me take this post to say

THIS DOG MAKES ME SIMPLY BLISSFUL.

(except when she pees on my favorite rug.)

the same.

2010-11-18T14:57:00.004Z

"The love of our neighbor is the only door out of the dugeon of self, where we mope and mow, striking sparks, and rubbing phosphorescences out of the walls, and blowing our own breath in our own nostrils, instead of issuing to the fair sunlight of God, the sweet winds of the universe."

[#49] George MacDonald: An Anthology of 365 Readings by C.S. Lewis

an excerpt from draft two of the novel.

2010-11-08T17:56:00.004Z

Siena is Italy’s forgotten treasure, the trove of rubies and crowns that American tourists overlooked when calendars and post cards glamorized the Ponte Vecchio in Firenze and the charming pressed together row houses sinking into the canals by fractions of millimeters each year in Venezia. The bolded city names on a map of Italy include others, like Roma and Milano, but never Siena. On the map, the medieval city appears to be a mere skosh of a town. But it is not.

The approach to the walled fortress is uphill from all angles. Outside the walls for kilometers small suburbs full of pizzerias and Laundromats blanket the gently rising terrain. There are bus stops along the way, sitting places for small women wearing wool skirts that fall to mid-shin and scarves to cover their short hair. It is dusty in August, hot and dry, and as you approach one of the city gates there is less and less green and more stone. The gates, palatial in their day no doubt, are now simple arched entryways into the wide stone stronghold.

Crossing underneath one of these archways, you are starkly transported to a very “other” place, if you can imagine such a thing. Suddenly medieval, the view is stone on stone on sky, rich, blue sky like the Mediterranean, often cloudless. Stone streets wind inscrutably around corners, connecting to other avenues, invariably stone, all similarly bent and uneven. At once it is a maze of mystery and appeal. Structures, the veins and muscle of the city, rise up from the narrow streets, one continuous system that houses apartments for singles or families, trattorias, small restaurants and markets, churches, hotels, panty shops, stocking shops, wine shops, cigar shops, boutiques, patisseries, tailor shops, ancient meeting places, butchers, pottery stores, gift shops and, more than any other thing, cafés. At just the right time of day, usually late afternoon, every door is swung wide open and the city dwellers bustle in and out like ants on an anthill. Small cars move slowly through the streets, avoiding the surge of pedestrians, with drivers often honking and shouting, “Va!” through the window, crossly pumping their fists in frustration at the traffic caused by careless foot people who believe in walking. A car larger than a shrunken utility truck is an anamolie, and is usually met with dirty looks from grandmothers on foot. The breezeless city streets, blockaded from any sideways air flow, are hot and the sun is bright off of the stone. Women move from shop to shop, filling their baskets with bread and prociutto, while school children play with balls around statues of the wolves Romulus and Remus seven hundred years old.

Everything points toward the city center: The Piazza del Campo. The “Campo,” as everyone refers to it, is one of the most distinguished, beautiful and unique piazzas in the country. Exquisite in it’s grandiose shell shape, the entire floor structure points casually down and inward for the most perfectly-erected drainage system built to service the entire city. Incredibly, the architects of the city created a center for both the practical functioning of the city itself, as well as a center for socialization. There is no place as busy as the Campo at any time of day.

In the evening, the nocturnal old men come to the streets to socialize. Posses of men in caps and slacks stand on corners and against stone walls, speaking with gross animation and waving hands. They smoke pipes and cigarettes, laughing and buzzing in low tones of quick Italian. Oh how they laugh with such an easy delight! It is hard to imagine they have ever seen sorrow, that they were ever anything other than simply content in work, family, city and life. They mingle for a few hours, until at least nine or ten o’clock in the evening. Then they mosey away, bidding each other, “Ciao,” in a nonpartisan tone, until we meet again. Tomorrow. Then they go home, up into apartments above a street where Signora is busy cooking a dinner of at least four impeccable courses.

Though the city appears blithe and placid, the tension of pride and the honor of generations underlies the rhythm of the Sienese in a way that circumvents the eyes of tourists and foreigners. Seventeen contrade constitute the corners of the city, marking Siena with invisible lines of unspeakable allegiance. Each citizen of the city belongs to one: Tower, Caterpillar, Unicorn, Ram, Porcupine, Eagle, Snail, Little Owl, Dragon, Giraffe, Seashell, Goose, Wave, Panther, Forest, Tortoise or She Wolf. Colorful coats of arms are the insignias of each pocket sub-community and one recognizes the street he treads by the flags that hang from sconces, windows and doors...

To Light a Thousand Windows

2010-10-27T14:24:00.002Z

...is the title of the book for now. That's progress, folks.

signing back in.

2010-10-24T22:14:00.010Z

I've probably clicked the little "blog" tab on my browser favorites bar three times in the last two and a half months, and every time I sit there waiting for the page to load I have this irritated little upper-lip smile because I know I should post, but I just.don't.want.to. Ah! True confessions of a writer. Reprehensibly, next to something huge has sat untouched since August twelfth--and it isn't that I think I have some massive following, but I have this sort of anxiousness about it, because if there is one thing I never want to slack on, it is writing. If I call myself a writer, I should write. And I am. Writing, that is.

From mid-July to mid-October I wrote the first draft of my second manuscript. This is big for me, as the first one took 10.5 months and is still in this massive compression chamber of editing/work/hacking/sewing it back together. But this second book has truly captivated me, as evidenced by the speed at which the first draft was drafted. Inspired by Stephen King's memoir On Writing, I disciplined myself to write almost every single day during that time period, no matter what, to fly hastily on the wings of inspiration, or to stare blankly at what amounted sometimes to a single paragraph in two hours. That's what I did, and the book is now in the editing phase. THE POINT IS, please understand (self, I am speaking primarily to you) that my absence in the blogosphere has been in the name of passionate novel creation. The tragedy is that the book is yet untitled. When I have the title, I'll post it.

But a lot has happened in the world! Jonathan Adams, the worlds most fabulous nephew, turned two and threw down. My best friends and housemates from college had a reunion for the first time since graduation in May of 2008. We threw an epic birthday cocktail party for Mark's 26th in September and had folks in the home until Sunday began to dawn. We celebrated the first era of our marriage, having read the entire Harry Potter series aloud, by spending a weekend in Universal Studios (FL) visiting the very Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We took a couple hundred kids to Young Life's Windy Gap, watched UNC beat Clemson live, stood by Erin Rawley as she became Erin Boyd, and went back to our Alma Mater, James Madison University, this weekend. Instead of stories, I bring you pictures.

1. Jonathan turns 2.

2. Brick House Reunion 2k10.

3. Epic Mad Men themed cocktail birthday party.

4. Wizarding World of Harry Potter

5. Beautiful October wedding: Erin Rawley and Adam Boyd!

5. Back to JMU...

wanted: taste tester for doughnuts.

2010-08-12T01:41:00.005Z

Living the dream is called being paid thirty dollars in cash to be a famous local doughnut corporation that shall remain nameless taste-tester for one hour.

Last week I heard from a temp in the doc’s office where I work part-time that the doughnut brand we'll call Crinkly Custard was hiring ‘townspeople’ to test their newest potential line of doughnuts. I called the hotline, spoke to a nice little woman who shall remain nameless and was, in fact, assured that I would be paid cash to taste five doughnuts. Immediately I agreed and signed up for 3:00 Wednesday.

Today I drove fifteen minutes to the middle of nowhere/High Point, NC region and arrived at the CC Factory location. Went inside to find a few of my friends (who I turned onto this coveted wage labor) and was ushered into a board room of comfortable black leather swivel chairs, mini water bottles and small piles of saltine crackers.

The woman in charge entered the room once the test group was all seated and informed us that we were participating in a “market research study” to determine which of the potential doughnuts would take flight if introduced to the general doughnut-consuming public. She used very official language, which made me laugh because we were tasting doughnuts.

Instructions such as “We suggest you take bites or a bite of each doughnut so that you don’t get so uncomfortably full that you don’t enjoy the last samples” and “We suggest that after each sample you sip the water, eat a cracker, and sip the water once more in order to cleanse your palate.” Meanwhile, I’m staring at the bajillion CC posters from years and years of epic fried dough advertising. I swear this is all true.

Next, this chick in a very short hot pink dress comes out with a tray hoisted above her shoulder of individual doughnuts on doilies, delivering them like a 1920s waitress on skates. My three friends and I couldn’t stop laughing, which apparently aggravated the woman in the row ahead of us because she kept turning to look over her shoulder and give us the eye. Anyway, this very adorable girl delivers the most ornate, enormous doughnuts I've seen in a long time, along with forks and knives, for tasting. This occurred five times over the course of the hour.

Near the end, my cell phone alarm (which I did not set, thank you) went off, probably botching the whole study because it disturbed the taste-testing zen, and to which my friend hissed, “they told us to turn those off!”

How’d I get the pictures? You’ll be glad to know, bloggies, that I snuck my camera into the taste test because it was just too good to be true. I needed to prove it. Thanks local doughnut mecca that shall remain nameless!

Lessons learned:
-Don't judge a doughnut by its frosting.
-Sometimes life does get handed to you on a silver platter.
-We weren't wrong. Getting paid to taste yummy food really is the best job on earth.

weekend in beaufort, sc.

2010-08-09T20:45:00.006Z

June 2008: Evans meet Pratts in Israel.

May 2009: Evans see Pratts at Evans wedding.

August 2010: Evans visit Pratts at beautiful, waterside home in Beaufort, SC. (see below)

6/08

5/09

8/10

Thanks, Pete and Nancy! We love you like family :)

this post doesn't make sense unless you read the last one.

2010-08-06T20:27:00.004Z

I decided to take a risk. I shut Dora (my incredibly perfect, brilliant, internet savvy MacBook) and shoved her white little self in my bag, got up and left Starbucks without purchasing a darned thing.

Started walking around the corner of the city block, and just as I did, MY CELL PHONE RANG. Did my husband secretly stick it in my shoulder bag as I exited the Jetta? Probably. Anyway, it was a text message from my brother asking me if the initials R.A.B. in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince stand for Regulus A. Black.

Feeling much better about leaving my pick-up point, I continued the CFA search. Truth: I looked up from my cell phone and found myself staring through the Chick-fil-a window!

OH.MY.GOSH.

Walked inside.

They were out of Lemonade.

irony - i am laughing.

2010-08-06T17:32:00.005Z

On one of those unbearably long road trips from Fort Myers, FL, to JMU after a summer of driving no more than twenty miles to hit the beach at Sanibel Island, my mom said something totally uncharacteristic that I will never forget. "On road trips, I live to eat."

Mark and I are, as I type, in the thick of a road trip. I sit in a Starbucks on Trade Street in Charlotte, NC with incredible natural lighting as a result of the number of windows. This Starbucks has great ambiance and I have just been sitting in a green velvet chair reading Stephen King's memoir, On Writing. We are headed to Beaufort, South Carolina for the weekend to visit dear friends we met traveling in Israel. They are precious, in their fifties, just moved from New York state to the shore in Beaufort because they wanted to. They're delightful and happy and the last time we saw them was at our wedding 2 Mays ago.

We got to leave early today because Mark has an appointment for work here in Charlotte. Here is where all of these facts come together.

I really want a large Lemonade from Chick-fil-a. I have been craving these lately, but I can't justify spending $2.22 any old day. But a road trip justifies a nonconventional drink purchase, right? When the GPS system said we were 15 minutes from our destination, the place Mark was headed for this appointment, we started looking for a Chick-fil-a where I could be dropped off to purchase a Lemonade, hang out, refill said Lemonade, hit the bathroom, until he returned to get me.

We scoured the GPS to find the closest CFA, but there wasn't one, hence I sit in Starbucks, but I do not want coffee.

Just a second ago I was sitting here and looked up out of these incredible windows, and there was a man, sauntering past, holding a Chick-fil-a cup! No. It cannot be.

Turns out, there is a Chick-fil-a somewhere around here... internet says it is within 0.1 miles. Here's the catch... I didn't bring my cell. Mark said he'd just come back for me.

Do I go get the Lemonade and search for a pay phone?

simon and garfunkel and movies.

2010-08-03T16:25:00.006Z

Simon and Garfunkel stimulates such aching nostalgia for me about growing up it takes my breath away. Literally. Last night Mark and I were watching the movie ("moomie" as Jonathan, my nephew would say) Bobby, a 2006 flick nominated for a couple of Golden Globes and Academy Awards about the day that Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, a watching which carried on until entirely too late an hour considering our alarms would sound at 5:45 this morning. We have trouble conceptualizing cause and effect relationships: i.e. if you stay up til midnight, you will be tired at 5:45. Nevertheless, we continue to pretend we're at college and that watching late night movies during the week is a good idea. I digress.

The movie is brilliant - one of those surprisingly entrancing performances with a stacked cast of five star actors and actresses that makes you proud to be an American because even though we live in a young country, we've got some pretty massive history. Senator Kennedy's death at the end of the movie is obviously no surprise, so you sort of anticipate it the whole time you're watching, which gives the whole story a grave poignancy, though when the gunshot is delivered in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel it is still shocking. My head had been on Mark's knee, and I sat bolt upright as the images flashed between the real 1968 footage and the movie footage from 38 years later in Hollywood, amazingly grafted together.

"The Sounds of Silence," a song that sails me to six years old in West Chester riding in my dad's car on a summertime Saturday morning to the hardware store, watching dust and lint particles glisten against the windshield and the feel of the polyester fabric against my skinny little legs. Simon and Garfunkel, Billy Joel, James Taylor, the Oldies FM station... the first entries in my musical memories. And although I still love that music, truly, it stirs me up so much to hear it now - makes me want to be there again - small and spindly and young, unaware and mostly happy. No shoes, wild hair, playing with my big sister in the creeks and muddy woods. Perfectly, the haunting song plays behind a speech of Robert Kennedy, which plays overtop scenes from the news that day.

This is just to say that I haven't seen a really good movie in a while (except Inception) and Bobby is a really good movie.

the end of an era.

2010-07-30T02:40:00.001Z

Two weeks after we got married, Mark and I started at the beginning. It wasn’t new for me, but for Mark! Can you imagine? Do you remember the way it felt to enter in, not knowing the ending?

I’m sorry, let me clarify: Harry Potter, the book series. I had read the series three times by the time we got married, but Mark had never read the books. Furthermore, he’d only seen one or two of the movies.

Inspired by a friend who had read the series aloud to her husband and two teenage daughters on a long road trip out west, I offered it to Mark. What do you think about me reading Harry Potter to you, all seven books, out loud? Though perplexed, Mark is the monarch of all things fun and childlike and he agreed. It was May of 2009.

Last night we read the final pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. After fifteen months of seven books, hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours, three times I had to stop and cry, many many nights sitting up late in bed when work mornings waited just a few hours around the corner, the first season of our marriage! Oddly, last night felt more like a milestone than our one year anniversary.

Two young adults, newlywed, reading a children’s book series aloud is kind of strange admittedly. But it’s kind of the way we are.

I begged Mark to let me photograph the moment:

To top it all off, Mark purchased two tickets to the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter (Universal Studios, FL) and we will be road-tripping down to Orlando in September for two nights and one day at Hogwarts.

weeds and thorns.

2010-07-23T17:28:00.003Z

So many things I never understood that now make sense, so many things that have crystallized as I've gotten older. For instance: weeds and thorns.

Jesus talked about how there are many ways a person could receive (or fail to receive) understanding of the kingdom of God. He tells the parable of the soil - how many seeds were sown, but the result of the laying of seed was varied: some of the seeds never took root, some of the baby plants were scorched under the hot sun, some plants got wrapped up in the thorns, which choked them to death, and only a small group actually sunk into the soil, began to grow roots, sprouted out of the earth, and grew to produce a crop.

I have heard that parable many times and over the course of my short life, I have related to every one of those seeds.

This morning I went out to my herb garden. I have an unhealthy affection for this garden that produces copious basil and flat leaf parsley, beautiful rosemary, mint and chives. The sage plant never really did well - guess it was a lemon. The cilantro was the tallest one for a while until the ground temperature got (and stayed) to high, which killed it. The mint is not looking too good these days and I haven't been able to figure out why. Anyway, some of the losses are disappointing, but for my first herb garden I've been pleased with the fruits of my labor.

Anyway, I've been noticing some weeds growing in and around the bed, which is enclosed in a wooden rectangle frame built by my father in law. I decided, as I was already sweaty, that I'd pull up some of the weeds. They grow all around the beds surrounding the house, and even into the yard, but I've sort of let them go because they're not so bad. In fact, they look more healthy and lush than my grass, so why bother?

When I started pulling up this very grass-like weed, I found that underneath the grassyness was this long snake-like vine. Very thin, but strong and a little bit sharp at points. This "vine" or whatever it is (green thumbs, feel free to comment) was growing in one long stretch around my garden with fingers and legs extending down and around. I pulled it up, following it into another bed and out toward the grass. I was shocked! This little devil is choking my plants by the neck and I've been walking by for the past month letting it grow, thinking that the weeds weren't "so bad."

As I was sweating in the 90-degree pulsing sun, hunched over my exquisite little patch yanking weeds up and replacing the dirt, I suddenly thought of the parable and had abrupt comprehension. The sneaky way of that sharp vine, traveling underneath the benign green, choking my plants before my very eyes, suddenly registered. I started to think about two things: fear and jealousy. The way they choke and strangle me, and how oblivious I am. And the occasional combination of the two? Have mercy. I need to be weeded. Big time.

Surprised at the perfection of the analogy for a minute, I thought about how precisely accurate Jesus was when he tried to get his disciples to understand this principle of the kingdom and its movement, how universal were his explanations. But why should I be surprised?

siena.

2010-07-21T21:28:00.004Z

Having just begun proceedings on my next book project, I have been somewhat burrowed down into the cushions of planning and thinking. Although this kind of works makes me feel more free and more excited, I think that to any outside onlooker I have become a little bit loony and hermit-like. Example: Last week I spent four hours researching Siena, Italy in the stacks of the Wake Forest Library, an invaluable resource, especially in summer.

Circling back, I emphasize that this book does, in fact, take place in Siena, Italy. It was in this fair city that Kaili and I studied abroad for four glorious months in the fall of my Junior year of college. It is the city of stacking buildings atop eachother, Ricciarelli, the Campo and Due Porte (a hole-in-the-wall pizza place that changed my life forever). Planning this book sets me right back down in the middle of those memories. Sitting here, surveying the storehouse, I see thousands of images...

envelopes.

2010-07-13T16:41:00.002Z

Having just returned from a week at Young Life's Sharp Top Cove week summer camp, my body is screaming: "YOU ARE NO LONGER IN HIGH SCHOOL!" Thank you, body, for your blunt reminder. Bruised, sore, exhausted and hoarse, I'm having trouble bringing my mind back to Winston-Salem, NC. I keep waking up thinking I should be on the top bunk in a room with 15 sleeping girls.

It is a great privilege to be a Young Life leader; moreover, a Young Life leader in Forsyth County. A great bond exists between the leaders in this city, enough that sometimes it seems to be nothing more than a gift and a joy. Taking kids to camp is one of the single greatest challenges I've ever met, in part due to the physicality of a week of running, jumping, screaming, biking, hiking, blobbing, swimming, competing and staying up late and getting up early. In terms of emotions, the week is also exhausting relating to kids, leaders, and people 24-7. I found that even in sleep I dreamed very vivid dreams of experiences I had had that day or would have later. During the week I confess there were times I counted down to returning home, but now that I am here, comfortable in Winston, a large part of me only wants to return.

The magic of camp lies here: that kids get to be kids for a week and, in that week, they get to hear that life really does hold something for them - that the God of creation loves them, one-to-one, with a great and everlasting love. Watching a high school kid grasp that truth for the first time, and the strange, otherworldly peace it brings, is like the rising sun on the ocean.

A favorite moment was when, on the last morning of camp, all of the high schoolers from Forsyth County, along with leaders, gathered together in a big room on camp. Each kid was given a piece of paper and an envelope so each one could write himself a letter that would be mailed to him or her six months later. We promised that nobody would read it, that they could write anything they wanted. A silent room inhaled and exhaled for fifteen writing minutes. I noticed kids finishing and began walking about the room to pick up the letters. The first person I came to, a very formidable African-American football player, sat there staring at the envelope.

"You need to address it to yourself," I whispered.

"I don't know how."

Suddenly I realized that this kid, and a ton of others, had never been taught to address an envelope. Disappointing though I was in the school systems of America, I sidled up next to this kid and helped him write his name and address in the center of the space. When he had finished, he smiled up at me, handed over the letter, and said, "Thanks, ma'am."

I smiled and moved around the room, squatting down to help ten more girls and guys from all over Winston-Salem address their envelopes; kids from privileged schools and kids from the worst schools in town. For some reason those moments of quiet were such a joy and reminded me of the invaluable childlikeness I keep trying to hold on to.

evans clan in butler, june.

2010-07-02T12:56:00.011Z

An evening at the world's greatest Ice Cream place: King Cones Castle. Dining on the back porch. Playing in the pool and hanging out at the cabin...

my girls.

2010-07-02T12:42:00.002Z

Between Young Life and Hope church, I spend a good 60% of my life either thinking about, worrying about, hanging out with or planning things for high school girls. When I think about that in light of the fact that I didn't love high school with any great passion, that I wasn't all that "cool" in high school and that I'm a little bit of a hermit at heart, I sort of lift my eyes and laugh.

Yesterday two of the girls who were in my cabin at YL's Crooked Creek last summer, who I've spent the past year becoming quite close with, came over to sit on my porch for two hours in the afternoon. Syd and I rocked on the two white chairs for a while, waiting for Cam, talking about her recent mission trip to Jamaica with McC, friends, college, boys and the joys of high school sports teams. Cam called, 45 minutes after their scheduled arrival time, to frantically report that her haircut had gone over, the dresser had hacked off "all" of her hair, and that she was on her way (and would we please tell her we LOVE her haircut even if it looks "TERRIBLE." End quote).

Of course her haircut was adorable, very NYC, though she swore she was going to go into hiding until the next morning when she was scheduled to fly north for her assignment as a workcrew server at YL's Timberwolfe Lodge. Syd and I tried for about five minutes to convince her it was a great haircut, an attempt we eventually abandoned. We sat and talked for a while, took a little trip to Sonic for Cherry and Strawberry Limeades, came back and sat a while longer on the porch until we realized we'd been there two hours and we probably had things we needed to get done.

As we sat there I was hit by a small sadness that this year, as I head to Sharp Top Cove, it won't be the same because my girls aren't going to be there. And yet, thinking of Syd and McC in Jamaica and Cam at Timberwolfe, in light of this past year of us studying Jesus and his life, for them for the first time, I was also struck by this incredible awe at how God has directed their hearts toward him and that I've had the front row seat for the whole thing. It's funny to think that these friendships could simply have never existed. And yet, they do and I can't let them go!

On Wednesday a few girls from the church Youth Group (which is my job) went to see Eclipse. I picked up J, who had been texting with me about how excited she was to see JACOB, and we discussed the finer points of the third novel in the Twilight series and the fact that Bella has no personality. We drove to the theater and laughed the whole way there. We had a blast! These girls are the BEST and I love being with them.

When I started as a Young Life leader and as the Director of Youth for the church, I didn't anticipate any of this - and now I can't really picture life without these high school girls, who will not always be in high school. I am a work in progress, realizing that life isn't mine and that the best best things are not what I would have thought. Not what I would have imagined at all.

the adams family!

2010-06-25T12:15:00.002Z

comedy at the post office.

2010-06-23T18:05:00.002Z

Every time I go to the Post Office something absurd happens. Last time a woman had a seizure and I called 911. I should write an entire blog about trips to the Post Office. There are three workers there: Joanne, Darius and this other guy at whose counter I never end up.

I am in the process of trying to procure an agent for the novel I spent the last year and a half writing. Some agents require e-mail submissions: a query letter pitching the story, a synopsis of the plot, a few chapters. It's all very simple by e-mail. About half of the agents, however, have remained in the old school and require hard copy submissions. I think I like this better, but it's complicated. In this case, you print and mail all of the elements, though it's a bit more tricky because they have to be precisely and perfectly printed with proper margins, spacing and pagination. I have recently acquired a printer (phew), but when it comes to sending out 50 pages of the book, I'd rather use a copy machine.

Today I went to the post office to mail out 4 query packages to various literary agents from California to New York City. The first two only required a query, synopsis and SASE, saying that they would let the writer know if they wanted to see more. Hmm. The other two required those first 50 pages. I printed one set and headed to the Post Office to make copies for the other query.

Joanne is a tall, formidable African American woman with these great big beautiful eyes and a laugh that carries down the hall, past the post office boxes, and out the front door. She makes fun of me each and every time I come, though it is she that wears purple nail polish and lip stick. I like her a lot. I had to purchase the envelopes for the large packet submissions, but didn't have cash for the very archaic copy machine (the kind that costs 15 cents a copy, only takes change or $1.00 bills, and allows you to lay one page on the screen at a time underneath of the folding top... can you picture it?) I paid to send a package to a friend and got $20 cash back, informing Joanne that I'd need ten $1 bills and one $10 bill. She gave me one of those "You've gotta be kidding me" looks.

"I don't have that kind of change! What do you take me for?"

"Joanne, look. I am trying to get a book published here. You've got to help me."

"You wrote a book?"

"Yes."

"Wow. Alright, here. Take five $1 bills. That's the best I can do."

Fine. One thing about Joanne--you can't be meek. You've got to be a bull dog.

Fifteen minutes later I get through 30 of the 50 pages and my dollars run out. Fantastic. I go back to Joanne, apologetically holding up the $5 bill.

"Please change this to ones for me."

"No!"

"Yes! Please, I need you to."

Dramatic roll of the eyes. "I'm not going to have ANY one dollar bills left, girl! What am I supposed to do."

I shrug with wide eyes.

Huge sigh. She gives me the ones. I finish the job, return to Joanne to check out and ship the parcels.

"You need a signature on these?"

"Nope."

"You sure?" She's concerned, knowing the value of my work.

"Yeah," I say. I'm too poor, I think.

"Alright. It's $5.97. Listen, you owe me for this."

"I know. Thanks," I reply.

"Bring me a smoothie or something. I'm parched. It's hot out."

"Mhmm."

I'll take her one, too. Later today.

birds.

2010-06-22T16:27:00.004Z

I think birds are creepy. My mother-in-law adores them. She pores over hand-me-down bird watching handbooks with binoculars in hand and she'll sit for a long time on her front porch watching the way the blue jays swoop across the lawn, discussing her recent attempts to evict the wrenns from the bird house to make room for the jays. Though I have tried to see things her way, I cannot.

A few weeks ago this very sinister black bird, not a blackbird, but a bird that was black, wouldn't move from the brick edge of my porch. I "shooed" it, swatted at it, jumped around in front of it, shouted...nothing. That thing wouldn't budge. Kind of started to make me nervous, sitting so close. A friend who was over shoved it off the ledge with a broom, and it finally swooped over to the neighbor's yard. But then it started to walk back toward us. Like I said: Creepy. After a few bird steps, it jumped up and flew right over our heads through the porch pitch. We ran inside, screaming! Imagine being kicked off your own porch by a bird.

Two weeks after that I walked down the path at six in the morning to head out for a run. Sitting on the step by the street was another one, a teenager bird, not fully matured, still fuzzy around its head and neck, making this awful squawking sound. It rotated its little head up around in a distorted, disjointed way. I almost stepped on it, accidentally, but kind of hopped over it at the last second. For a moment I felt guilty, obligated. To help? Pick it up? No. I left. When I came back, it was gone but it bothered me at work all morning. When I got home a little after one o'clock it was gone. Relieved, I went to walk inside. A few minutes later when I walked outside to water the herb garden on the side of the house there it was again, marching down the walk. I ran inside. Again, chased away by a bird. On the phone I tried to explain to Mark my vexation, but he laughed. "It's a bird, Ginny."

It's been a few weeks. Just two days ago I returned home in the evening to that same bird, the one I'd almost stepped on/ran away from. It was sitting on the little porch table, now covered in purple bird droppings. Fabulous. It stared me down as I walked up the steps to the porch and the anxiety welled up in my stomach. I tried to stand my ground, almost approached it to swat it away but again, I bolted inside. By this time I was quite put out. I am queen of this castle! And you, little black bird, are merely a peon. And yet, I run from you every time I see you. Mark was forced to go outside and shoo it away. It moved for him. Maybe it can sense fear. Mark was laughing the whole time.

I've seen this bird several times since. Maybe once every other day. I'm pretty sure it's nesting somewhere in our gargantuan front yard pine tree. I'm pretty sure it's realized its power over me. The other day it sat on the outside ledge of the window where I look out from my writing desk chair. Taunting me, flicking its head in laughter. I'm going to have to learn to live with this bird, I guess.

summer vacation on a sailboat.

2010-06-07T15:53:00.009Z

Today feels like October in Annapolis. The rain last night pressed the humidity into the ground and this morning it was windy and cool, the sun shimmying through the leaves of the great oak tree in the back yard that leans over lazily on the roof of the back house. It even smells like Annapolis, the wind smells like water. I am curious where this day came from, where it's headed.

After a week of sailing around the British Virgin Islands on a 47-foot catamaran last week, it's taken my brain several days to congeal to a point of operation and effectiveness again. The week nearly feels like a dream - the dream trip. 6 days. 1 boat. 7 passengers. 1 British Captain, Andy. 87 degrees. 2 storms. 5 pina coladas. 30 SPF. 2 novels. 10 o'clock bed time. 6 o'clock wake-up with the sun. 500 combustions of laughter and 2 perfect parents who took us on the trip. I could write a lot about it, but I'll just let you see...

may 2, 2010.

2010-05-04T02:09:00.006Z

Our anniversary was yesterday, May 2. One year ago I walked down the long pathway through the courtyard of the Mill in Greensboro, around the fountain, and up the stone steps to the trellis where Mark was waiting, smiling that tilted smile, and we said we would. And yesterday we could not believe a year had passed. It's felt like the best month of my life, not year. The fact that twelve months have passed is startling. Being married is the most fun thing I've ever been half of.

The bakery that made our wedding cupcakes, Maxie B's, made us a fresh 4-inch mini-cake pillar for our anniversary. We opted for pumpkin chocolate chip cake with cream cheese icing, which will actually change your life if you take a chance, one of the flavors of our cupcakes last year. On Saturday night Mark and I swung by the bakery in Greensboro to pick it up before spending an evening with Hannah and Josh, then heading home to Winston.

Our cake...

On the way home, as we were reading the fifth Harry Potter, I opened the gorgeous cake box to sneak a sniff of the masterpiece and my jaw hit the seatbelt. The cake had fallen over, to the left side, and was smooshed and broken against the edge of the cardboard box. The perfect cake had succumbed to the damp heat of the premature summer night and tumbled. So did my resolve. A deep frown accompanied my "OH NO" and Mark, driving, looked over and said, "Baby! What's wrong?" I had tears in my eyes.

Flashback: It's June 2, 1992. My sixth birthday. A low-budget birthday party at the park is made magical by my mother who has fashioned the most incredible, impeccable, beautiful, white, yellow and pink princess castle cake. Guys, this cake was a work of art belonging in a museum. She spent hours the day before building this cake half a foot tall with four spires made of upside-down ice cream cones, a drawbridge made of licorice and windows outlined by gumdrops. It was a real castle, my 6th year birthday cake, and I could not have been any more enraptured.

Let me reiterate that it's June. It's almost 100 degrees. The red minivan most certainly doesn't have AC. Mom says, "Ginny, wait here in the car with the cake. I'm going to go get the decorations and we'll go to the park." I'm put on guard with one responsibility: GUARD THE CAKE.

I can't quite remember the turn of events, how it all went down. But it did. Literally. Suddenly the cake was sideways on the backseat of the van. Broken spires, turned over bridge, castle walls that look like they'd been sieged. The cake fell and I.fell.apart. Can you imagine? The great crowing joy of my birthday crushed. I was hysterical.

My mom returned to the van, heard the tears, saw her eight hours of work splayed out across the plush red bench seat. She gasped, doubtless devastated at the crumbling of her masterpiece. But then she saw me and remembered how much more devastating this all was for six-year-old me, believing this to be my own palace, and in this moment she achieved her mom crown.

"Ginny, it's okay. It is better this way. Do you remember in the Narnia books when Lucy and her brothers and sister go back to Narnia and it's many many years after their first visit and they find the castle at Cair Paravel, but it is the ruins. It is long after the castle has been seiged and crumbled. But it is magical, still the castle. This castle, Gin, is the ruins."

And somehow, she convinced me.

So on Saturday, when our anniversary cake crumbled, all I could see was the Ruins from my 6th birthday. When we got home I put the cake back together, haphazardly, and smoothed the frosting over the sides. Felt like I was six. The next night, Sunday, our anniversary, I set the cake out on our breakfast table and lit candles around it. The cake was perfect, delicious, pristine.

See it? Sort of tilted and beautiful?

the rest of the story.

2010-04-22T20:21:00.002Z

Mark is Boris Pleshenko, the Siberian FigureBlader. Blake, High Top, and I, Low Top, are gearing up for the World's Greatest Three-on-Three Basketball Championship. Discovering that Boris is actually Slipper, our third man who ran away to Siberia when he missed the game-winning shot in the Show Down at Cape Town in 2004. That's the rest of the story.

mark as 'johnny riptide' at windy gap.

2010-04-18T03:30:00.003Z

That's right, we did program. Along with Blake Hill, the mastermind, also pictured. I don't have my costumes on... be thankful.

reconnecting.

2010-04-15T22:11:00.004Z

This week I'm down in Fort Myers hanging out with my parents and brother for a week of reading books, laying by the pool in the intermittent clouds and sunshine, drinking Mirassou Pinot Noir, celebrating my dad's birthday and helping my mom weed the garden. It's deleriously relaxing and my body is reverting to my 8th grade self that wants to sleep all the time. Usually when I'm down in Florida I want to crawl into my hermit crab shell and not talk to anyone outside of the Ficker 5. However, this evening I have had the delightful pleasure of talking to a few great friends... including, but not limited to

Amanda Fair, previously Miller, who was married in early February of this year. I will always call her "Miller," though it kind of no longer applies, but also will always apply. Brickies, you know. Anyway, a great forty-five minutes of a few hearty laughs, catching up, and making dreamy plans for the future. A sweet conversation to fill me up for weeks to come with the presence of great memories and warmth from the days we lived together in the Brick House on High Street. What is it about a good friend and her voice that changes a moment from regular to sparkling?

Sam Boro, an old friend from high school, who is teaching Social Studies to inner city kids in Baltimore. Though his job is literally sapping the life out of him, he sounds like his old self. High school seems so far away from me, though it isn't. But when he said, "Hello?" this afternoon, I just laughed! Remembering his voice in countless wonderful moments from when I was fifteen to eighteen.

Kevin, in an e-mail. Told me he was writing, sipping coffee, which reminded me of the days he worked as a baristo (?) in this little coffee shop on Benfield Road in Severna Park. Told me about living in Boston with his beautiful Susan and thinking of moving to the UK.

Sam and Kevin pictured below...

And then Kaili, sweet sweet bestie, who makes me know I'm home every time I read or hear a word out of her mouth or mind. She made me get on video chat in Gmail, something I've steered clear of for fear of not knowing how to use it, until now. And we sat, she in her cubicle three hours behind me, and I on my mom's sofa under the oil painting of the egret. She showed me the nick nacks on her desk because, "I feel like I should show you things in my life." Including a doll with a unibrow, flowers made of paper and a pair of scissors with a plastic blue handle. She's coming to visit in June, with Ben, and we made plans for Mark and Ben to be friends. Fingers crossed.

It's 6:30 now and I'm listening to Explosions in the Sky off and on with some Patty Griffin and the breeze is coming in through the great sliding doors that wrap around the back of the house like invisible fences, listening to the palm trees bend back and forth feeling like today I am happy.

annie dillard and 'the writing life.'

2010-04-03T03:06:00.005Z

Writing is a funny thing, like an addiction the way it haunts you until you have your fix. Sometimes when an idea flies into my brain I can't stop thinking on and around and through it until I quit the thing I am doing, sit down, and write it out. Sometimes it has to be typed. Sometimes I have to turn several pages back in my writing notebook to be sure the page is completely white and free of text, and write it there. I have to use a Pentel R.S.V.P. fine point black ink pen...I will run around the house scouring for one until I find it. And it's a race, you know, to get the thought down on paper or Dora (the name of my Macbook) before it flies right on out my ear. I literally forsee the winged thought on its way out. All the while the muse, strangely a diminutive Scottish man with reddish sideburns, sits up on the edge of the laptop, kicking his little shoed feet and smiling. Sometimes his smile is reassuring and comforting. Other times he mocks me. In my head, in my world unspoken imagination, this all seems quite normal. But when I think about it, really, it seems lunatic.

Annie Dillard wrote this brilliant book called "The Writing Life" wherein she discusses this state of being--the mental and actual lifestyle of the writer and the way writers think and operate. She talked about how she would lock herself away in a cold cabin overlooking the ocean to write, how she would subsist on Coca Cola and chocolate and how when she wrote in a small room in the library she would close the blinds so she wouldn't be tempted to distractions of the outside world. She says, among so many other things, "the fanaticism of my twenties shocks me now. As I feared it would."

I have a friend who always asks me how my writing is going and I appreciate her for this because she forces me to believe and own the fact that I write. I am a writer. We were discussing Annie Dillard's philosophies and how I could never do what she does--commit myself to isolation for the sake of writing. Because I view her from an apprentice standpoint this made me feel hopeless at first, as if I don't sell my soul to the muse I won't be opening myself up for true success and brilliance. Allison talked me down, assured me that people with very busy and integrated lives cannot become an island.

That being stated, if I could meet Annie Dillard I would thank her for writing her book because of the great comfort, wisdom and humor ("why people want to become writers I will never know"...AMEN SISTER. Pure torture 85% of the time but the 15% of near heavenliness...maybe that's why). I would tell her that every time I read a paragraph in her book it gave me fuel to gun across another two-hundred miles of story.

Toward the end of the book she tells of how Michelangelo, at his death, left a note to his apprentice that simply said, "Draw, Antonio, draw, Antonio, draw Antonio and do not waste time." And this has made all the difference to me... Write, Ginny, write, Ginny, write and do not waste time.

passports.

2010-03-25T16:21:00.004Z

I thought I'd changed my name to "Evans" on everything of consequence and had peacefully put the thought out of my mind. However, due to the fact that the Fickers/Adams/Evans clan will be sailing out of United States waters in May in honor of Kyle's graduation, I realized that my passport still says "Virginia Leigh Ficker."

Tuesday after work at 1:00 I drove straight to CVS for new passport photos ($6.99), then on home to find my marriage certificate. Tore the flipping house apart, couldn't find it. Literally sweating, with papers out of every file in the filing cabinet, I sat down with my head in my hands and asked for grace to find the piece of paper. Had the sudden idea to look in the glove box of my car...where I found the certificate. Eureka! It's 2:45.

Drove to my office to fill out the Passport Renewal form after realizing the one I had was not completely printed and I needed to photocopy the marriage certificate. Also needed to print draft two of my novel. Nilla, bless her, the administrative person told me that a photocopy would not do, that I would need to drive to the courthouse for a certified copy of the thing. Ten bucks. So what can I do but go?

Drive downtown, park on the street a block from the courthouse only to realize...I don't have a quarter to feed the meter. Ughh.... oh wait! There are 35 minutes left on the meter. I get out of the car and speed-walk (Olympic style) to the courthouse. Get up to the right office, walk in, get everything in order and then... "Cash only," says the nice lady behind the counter.

"What?"

"We only take cash."

I even brought my checkbook dang it.

"Where is the nearest ATM?"

"Three blocks down Second Street."

Off to the races again...run/walking to the ATM to make it back to the courthouse and to the car in what is now 22 minutes.

Pay the $3 fee at the Wachovia ATM and run back to the courthouse. Get the certificate. Get a second one for good measure. So far we're up to $29.99. Take it all, look at the clock: 3:47 p.m. What time does the post office close? 5:00? Okay. To the post office.

Standing in line at the post office where the clerk always flirts with me in this kind of cute way, saddened by my rings, he is waiting on a woman who, suddenly, falls to the floor and has a full blown seizure. True story. Who calls 9-1-1? Me. I do. Captain Ginny Bug. Deal with the woman having the seizure, mail my passport to Philadelphia ($3.74) along with a $75.00 check made out to the Department of State. $108.73 simply to change my name from "Ficker" to "Evans" on my stupid passport.

This.is.the.story.of.my.life.

a little tour...

2010-03-12T11:18:00.004Z

Welcome to our house! This is the writing room, graciously named so by my husband who believes I really am a writer...

And the living room...

And the last remaining piece of the first Claire-a-Bell's Chocolate Chip Cake ever baked at 2337 Walker Ave. Things will never be the same...

And the bathroom. Look at that...shower curtain!

usually i hate rain.

2010-03-11T21:52:00.002Z

I do. Not even the writer in me can make lemonade out of rain. Every time the sky is cast gray and the air is unusually damp and the whole day passes without ever showing the light of the sun, I am depressed. I believe this is called "Seasonal Affective Disorder" but I call it Rain Makes Me Blue disease. It is so real, in fact, that on gray days Mark calls home a few times just to make sure I haven't jumped. My mom will see that the forecast in North Carolina is dim and call to make sure I'm okay. Usually I'm not.

So today when I woke up to a dismal sky above, I had that feeling in the pit of my stomach assuaged only by the sheer fact of waking up in our new house (which I would rather frolic about inside of and never leave). The high of living in this house carried me through the day, along with a good long walk. By four-thirty I was surprised I didn't feel the rain angst.

Here's the amazing thing: When it started to rain at 4:45, I was strangely... delighted! It's warm in here, and all the little table and floor lamps are turned on against the windows and the crisp, pretty walls. It's warm and cozy in here and even in spite of the chaos of boxes, it is very charming and the bricks have me fortified from the weather. Mmmmm, I love my house.

just in case you weren't tired of hearing about the...

2010-03-10T14:32:00.005Z

NEW HOUSE! We've moved in, water is turned on, power is on, bugs/rats/ants have been baited and poisoned, washing machine and dishwasher christened and all is well on Walker Avenue. Not that there haven't been bumps, like the water main bursting down the street yesterday and the fact that the power at the apartment was turned off before I had emptied the fridge and freezer. Yikes.

The actual epic transfer of oversized furniture from one itty-bitty upstairs apartment to our bungalow took place Sunday after church. Returning around lunchtime after teaching Sunday school to a husband who had cleared out almost everything small from the apartment, we exchanged a quick kiss, then parted ways to pick up pizza and beer, make a few Home Depot runs, dump trash and pick up laundry. Our hired help (unpaid, that is) was to arrive at 2:00. At 1:45, as Mark was running out the back door and I out the front, he said, "Hey, hang on a second. I have a house warming gift for you." My first thought was that if he has bought me a puppy I'm not going to be happy camper. He went out to his car and came back in with a hilariously wrapped box too small for a puppy.

It was a Nikon D-40 Digital camera which I have been saving for for several months and still had quite a distance to go before purchase could be made. "You had to have it to capture this day," he said. I cried. It's in these small moments between us that I remember we're just these two little people and I'm so so grateful for him. Love him.

new home owners!

2010-02-27T02:43:00.002Z

I could be awarded “Worst Blogger of 2010” at this point, though I am trying to change my ways. Please bear with me as the past month has been a swirling whirlpool. Big news: This afternoon at 1:00 on the dot, Mark and I signed our names over thirty times to CLOSE ON OUR NEW HOUSE. That’s right, beginning March 1, 2010 Mark and Ginny Evans reside at 2337 Walker Avenue. That’s in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Can you believe it?? I can’t. So whereas I had become pretty adept at spinning too many plates (jobs, writing, Young Life, etc.) they just about came crashing down these past few weeks as we approached this most fateful day. And even now, as I sit in the airport in Raleigh, NC waiting to fly to Chicago (a whole other story), the relief is washing over me like a cool shower after a long summer run. It’s beautiful. For the first time in a week, it’s even sunny outside.

We closed with an attorney named Steve who looks like a skinny Santa Claus with a shorter beard and when he walked out to the waiting room where Mark, the owners, our realtor and theirs, were waiting, I thought he was someone there to fix the roof. He wore jeans and a camouflage fleece vest, has a giant gap between his two teeth and sort of stared at us with this bewildered look on his face. He used expressions including “wild ass guess” and “you can sign this, we’re just killin’ trees.” Made us laugh a lot and explained the ins and outs of the documents we signed. All told, we sat there for about fifty minutes and walked out of the office on Knollwood with a set of keys to our new bungalow!

Flying out of Raleigh (1 ½ hours away) at 5:30, we had to beat it out of there, but decided to detour to our NEW HOME, find a bottle of champagne at the front door, unlock the doors, cross the threshold for the first time (I was carried) and run through every room screaming. It was a moment to remember and now we’re home-owners. You are welcome to come visit! Yes, you!

As we have approached this day, furiously packing boxes and cleaning out the freezer, buying large expensive appliances and changing our address on important documents, there has been a small bit of sadness at leaving 519 Lockland Ave. And though there have been times I was so mad at the broken sink for the eleventh time, the flying June bugs, and the thin walls, neighbors pumping the bass I could have spit, we have loved that little apartment. So long as it isn’t ever condemned, I will treasure some day taking my kids to see the 700 square feet where Dad and I once lived for 11 months when we were first married… the yellow scaffolding and crumbling porch, the sloping driveway halved by stones and the great maple in the sideyard that turns firey orange in October.

That said, 2337 Walker, here come the Evans. Please make room for us and open your arms because the life that you are about to witness is going to be something else.

following up...

2010-02-11T19:47:00.001Z

... we sign on our house, 2337 Walker Avenue, on February 26th and move on March 6th!

snow storms and buying houses and growing up and things.

2010-02-01T19:35:00.003Z

Winston-Salem has been hit yet again by a substantial snow storm. It moved in on Friday and stayed until Saturday. Today, Monday, our little southern town is trying to figure out how to lower the plows and clear the roads. It seems they have the salting down, but not the plowing. It has been a surprisingly cold winter down here and these snow storms (the first just before Christmas) pretty much knock everyone on their backs for a few days. What is more, we're supposed to be blasted again on Thursday and Friday.

Last weekend I took the high school girls from church to Winterplace, WV to ski. Monday morning, Mark left for a four-day business trip in Lubbock, Texas. Lubbock, you ask? You've never heard of it. Me either. Mark described it as the setting of an old western film. Also the home of Texas Tech. And wouldn't you know it that Texas, for the first time in about ten years, had a massive ice and snow storm and Mark was snowed in there for an extra day. Fantastic. We finally got him home, though, when he flew into Charlotte during our massive ice and snow storm, thanks to Doc's 4 wheel drive truck.

Saturday we plowed forged through the snow to visit a house we've been scoping out for a few weeks with our realtor Chad, Mark's parents, and trusty old Kyle Welch. We love it and today... we'll make an offer! We also found out Kyle has been accepted to UNC Chapel Hill to complete the North Carolina trifecta (Adams, Evans and Kyle).

Seems we're growing up, all of us. I'm flipping through my memory and trying to figure out when it began and I can't quite find a starting point. But... so it is.

Happy snow!

latest top ten.

2010-01-14T21:18:00.003Z

Here are my latest top ten things. If you know me well you might be familiar with a game I like to play called "Top Fives," where the players (aka the bored people in the room) list their top five of any given category: Movies, books, desserts, vacation spots, dishes, sweaters, shoes, etc.

Ergo, I present to you my current top TEN favorites. Of any genre.

10. Lord of the Rings. I realize it's pretty far behind the times because the LOTR craze happened about five years ago. Before the trilogy was very recently crowned as movie event of the decade, however, I developed an itch to watch them over again and Mark and I began with the extended version (four hours) of The Fellowship of the Ring. It took us two nights, we took a couple nights off to build our anticipation, then dove into The Two Towers, extended version, also over the course of 2 nights. Just finished and we're heading toward number 3, The Return of the King, on Saturday. I can't wait. I almost whisper with anticipation even though I have seen all three movies at least twice and know the end! I wonder how it feels for Orlando and Vigo to know that their trophy performance, most likely of their life, is already finished.

9. Google Chrome. I didn't know what it was either, until I called Apple because Dora (my beloved MacBook) was trudging terribly slow from webpage to webpage on Safari, Apple's own browser. The gentleman techie told me, without telling me, that I should try Google Chrome, a browser created by Google. Of course I downloaded it. Of course it's superior to Safari, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. Of course Google, once again, proves its capacity to slowly but surely take over planet Earth.

8. Pop music. Seriously. It started when I went home for Christmas and my brother, yes, my 18-year-old brother made me listen to Lady Gaga and Chris Brown and that girl that sings "Tic Toc." And ever since I've been home I can't quit listening to all this stuff. And now I've got "Empire State of Mind" constantly in my head. I don't want to be a pop head, but I can't help it.

7. Editing The Peach Street Girls. Writing the novel was very fun and very emotional and very difficult. It also very much made me question my life calling to be a writer. I dreaded the editing process even more, however, based on the things I've heard from people who have attempted to write a book and, furthermore, make it fly. But, to my delightful surprise, editing is quite fun. Step one: Read the entire book aloud and make notes in the margins each time a sentence is written poorly, you think you must have been sleeping when you wrote, or there is no direction. Also make notes of brilliant lines and hilarious moments. I don't know step two because I'm still on step one.

6. Real Simple Magazine. This is a refreshed favorite because Real Simple is my favorite magazine, but my sister and brother in law gave me a YEAR LONG SUBSCRIPTION for Christmas. The magazine doesn't fit through the brass mail slot on the old wooden door of my apartment so the mail lady leaves it propped against the door. I come home, once a month now, to a smiling Real Simple calling out for me to flip through it ten times or more. The magazine is precisely what it claims: simple articles, stories, recipes, new uses for old things, pictures... delightfully thick pages to flip through and read. No junk. I love it.

5. Our new original oil canvas. That's right, Mark and I have purchased a 2 foot by 3 foot oil canvas of a landscape in Tuscany that resembles about a dozen places I used to ride past on the bus while living in Siena. Once a year in January there is a Starving Artists painting sale where nothing costs over $59. Fabulous. That's where we got it and it is gorgeous.

4. Edamame. That is, soy beans. I almost hate to admit that I have fallen victim to the very granola, very hippie protein source. It just feels too... earthy. I don't know why I feel the need to avoid this rap... like it'll make me suddenly turn vegetarian or something. But here's the truth: Edamame is delicious and filling and perfect for a salad. It's healthy and packed with nutrients and you can buy a bag of the frozen, shelled soy beans for $2.79 at Harris Teeter.

3. My new, way too expensive but absolutely worth it, Citizens of Humanity bootcut jeans. I was not a supporter of astronomically priced designer jeans... until I put a pair on my body. I hate shopping for jeans because they usually don't fit just right and, if they do, then they stretch or shrink once you leave the store. However, after saving up for SIX MONTHS I finally bought my perfect jeans. And they are. Perfect. I know they cost too much, dad, but it was worth it.

2. The moment Mark gets home from work. For so long our work schedules were all kinds of chaos and half the time I didn't even see him get home from the restaurant. But now, when he gets home between 6 and 7 o'clock and I hear that key in the door and I see that devilishly good-looking man I love walking up the narrow steps to our little apartment in his pleated khaki pants and that button up shirt, with his brief case and his dear, dear smile, it makes me know I am going to be happy for the rest of our lives.

1. OmmWriter. Sounds like some kind of Buddhism/Etherial writer thing, but it isn't. It's the best thing that's happened to my writing life in a long time. Please click to find out: www.ommwriter.com

early to tread

2009-12-30T17:07:00.003Z

In Italy we walked everywhere. It wasn't that we walked from our apartment on Via del Porrione to class two blocks over, or that we walked to the coffee shop down the street. I mean, we literally walked the entire city of Siena daily. We walked outside of Siena too, to the train stop a few kilometers away. And we walked in foreign cities where we visited, like Venice and Rome, the beaches of Viareggio and the coast of the five lands. Without bikes, euros for bus fare or even a skate board, we walked. It became not only a mode of transport, but our avenue to see the city, experience the shops and meet the people, even if we didn't exchange words. It was charming to walk in Siena where the streets are made of great gray stones and there aren't sidewalks. The street runs right up to the store fronts and apartment doors and when the trucks drive through delivering meat from the surrounding farms, you press your body against the cold stone walls in order to evade their tires.

When I look back at my time in Europe, the most impressive memory I have is of traipsing across France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy, and of discovering the exclusive city of Siena on foot. In Siena the walls, which tower over and close you in, are also the observer's perch, the writer's thinking position. And beside the picture of the stone streets, I picture the views from the walls looking out over the rolling hills of the Tuscan landscape.

From my apartment in Ardmore, the grocery store is one mile away, the post office three-quarters of a mile, my office, two miles, and the book store, a little over two. I began walking again, all over town, about two months ago, when the weather turned cold and my seasonally depressed brain began needing as much natural light as possible. Occasionally my timid self insecurely hopes nobody I know sees me, but I'm getting over it. It's the strangest thing, though it shouldn't be, but it's wonderful, this walking. I'm getting to know this city for the first time since I've moved here, really getting to know it. Its small roads and its strange streets. The houses with red doors and the women who keep great beautiful gardens. I know where the territorial dogs live and which houses have gone on the market, and the ones which have sold.

It does take longer, I'll admit. Walking. And it's more tiresome. But it's also much more lively and alluring and cleansing. In this cold winter my cheeks are flushed by the time I make it to the Post Office... but my mama always said rosy cheeks are becoming.

joy.

2009-12-15T20:23:00.002Z

I was driving through Baptist Hospital on Cloverdale Avenue this week. It was foggy and dark at 4:30, as has been custom in Winston these past few weeks, and I pulled up to the red light in the left turning lane. All of a sudden I remembered that Christmas is coming, that I'll be in the living room of my family's home with my big old 6 foot 4 inch brother telling me stupid inappropriate jokes, holding a glass of red wine, while my brother-in-law and dad taunt my husband about the recent (pitiful) demonstrations made by his Pittsburgh Steelers. My mom will be sticking up for him because she thinks that Mark hung the moon and my sister will inevitably be entranced by some Christmas spectacular on the TV while the little Jonathan hangs on Jake, our old golden retriever.

And when I sat at the light thinking of that scene in my home with my family, whom I love more than anything or anyone on the face of the earth, I actually started to cry. (Hannah is shaking her head at this, smiling).

That is joy.

Here's another one: our Christmas tree. It is the most beautiful, brilliant, vivid, psychedelic tree you have ever seen. Colored lights, ridiculous ornaments, "Baby's first Christmas" sled from 1984 (put that one together...) It's absurd, really, and perfect. Six o'clock in the morning is wonderful this month because I get an hour of darkness in the living room with my beautiful bright tree and a cup of coffee and I love it.

That is joy.

Jonathan. I didn't think I'd ever like a kid as much as I love my nephew. Mark says it's like a drug for me and he is right. I go over there at least once a week to hang out with the kid. He is the best person in the world. Please see the photo posted in the previous entry on the blog.

Friday morning when I was there he was acting drunk, just laughing uncontrollably and stumbling all over the place. I usually end up in laughing fits just being around him. Anyway, I'm sitting on the ottoman of the comfy chair in the living room and Jonathan waddles over and kind of wraps his arms around my legs and buries his face in my knees, whining. I pull him up onto my lap and lay my head back into the seat of the chair and he climbs up onto my stomach, flops his head down beside my head and begins to laugh. His shaking self, stomach on my face, makes me laugh, and apparently it tickles him, so he laughs harder. Hannah had to come see what in the world was making us laugh so hard because the one-year-old and the twenty-three-year-old literally cannot stop.

Now that is joy.

welcome to advent.

2009-12-03T19:44:00.003Z

the end of november.

2009-11-30T19:48:00.002Z

This morning I finished the first draft of my first novel. It's been a long time coming, since February, and this morning I wrote the final scenes, made a title page, came up with a title for that matter, and converted the document from 180 single-spaced pages to 357 double-spaced pages. I am so thankful for the book. I love it! Is that crazy? Is it crazy that I just began to cry when it was finished. I don't even know why.

a few pictures from lately.

2009-11-16T19:27:00.003Z

Halloween night. Our friends got really decked out! We were excited! Thank you Stefanie and Paul for donning the afros. And if you're wondering who is down in the right corner, it's Mark. He's Mike Tomlin. I'm Troy Polamalu. Hannah and Josh won the costume contest as a snowboarder and a black diamond. Dad was... some kind of old man. Hilarious.

Sisters, sisters. Never were there such devoted sisters...

Jonathan had discovered the sugar rush of orange marmalade and instead of eating the toast, licked the jam from it. Dad was helping out, which Jonathan thought was totally bizarre. "Uhh, Papa? What are you doing?"

perspectives on early Christmas festooning.

2009-11-13T20:15:00.001Z

A common point of contention this time of year is the early Christmas decorating, as exhibited by establishments such as Nordstrom, Starbucks, and the Gap. Once Halloween is gone, the Christmas train pulls into the station and anyone that sells something gets on board.

I hear people say all the time, “Oh.my.gosh. I can’t believe they’re already decorating for Christmas. It’s not even Thanksgiving! It’s ruining the spirit of Christmas, commercializing it, nobody remembers what Christmas is really about…” It goes on.

And while I can understand the sentiment of such complaints, I would like to take my stand on the opposing soapbox.

When I saw the first RED CUP (capitalized in honor of importance) of coffee from America’s largest coffee shop chain last Wednesday, I was thrilled. Yes, it was the fourth day of November. But something about those red cups evokes a sense of great chilly gladness within me. Those cups scream, “Drink me! You will be filled with the joy of Yuletide!”

And in department stores the great colored balls hang down from the ceiling, strung up with glittering tinsel. Who doesn’t want to hear Mariah Carey sing about her baby on Christmas a hundred times? Shopping in Nordstrom suddenly becomes this wonderfully sentimental walk down memory lane. The smell of Nordstrom reminds me of my mother when she would go to galas with my father. Those were always in December it seems, and he would wear a tuxedo and she a long black skirt with a deep red top. Those nights my parents became the stars of some great fifties movie.

My sister agrees with me (Can I get an “Amen” Hannah?) too, I’m not the only one on the box in the corner facing the ring. Both of us love when it begins to be dark at 5:15 in the afternoon. Suddenly snuggly evenings are longer and the cold, dark outside forces you in to hunker down and wear socks around your house. And, after turkey day, when there is a tree with lights and ornaments sitting in the middle of the living room, where else could you possibly want to be???

I must say that I used to follow the crowd on this, believing that Christmas festivities waited until at least the day after Thanksgiving, if not the first of December. I changed my mind, or I took a stand for the thing I always loved. Bring on Christmas early! I will sing carols as soon as I see my first tree. I’ll try to keep from decorating until after Thanksgiving, but you can believe I’ll be enjoying the mall and Starbucks a little more often.

a room with a view.

2009-11-01T21:47:00.001Z

The Principle of Trees in October

2009-10-26T18:21:00.000Z

In fall the house is cold.

Hardwood floors, curled upward at the baseboards

from summer humidity

and time,

chill my feet from below.

The toe I broke a while back,

all healed, feels sore.

Even socks can’t warm these feet

and I don’t want to wear shoes

inside.

I like to have my nose turn cold, like a steel doorknob

and touch it with the soft skin on my hand

between my thumb and forefinger.

Slightly damp hair chills my neck and back,

the collar of my sweater is cold too.

Pattering fingers dance on the white keys

and turn opaque with cold.

My rings slip around and the diamonds fall

to the underside, unseen.

I grasp a cup of coffee, also losing its heat,

and stare transfixed out the drafty panes

and the leaves outside the window are

like a blazing fire.

part-time all the time

2009-10-16T15:31:00.003Z

I suppose that I could have gotten a full-time job somewhere. I could leave my house at 7:30 and get to work by 8. Stay there until 5 and wear black slacks with button-ups and sweaters. I could have a little cubicle, maybe eventually an office, and work at my computer and talk to "clients" and write memos.

However, as I have never been one to stay indoors and as I couldn't think of a job where I would stay sane inside of an office all day, I have chosen (or been dumped into) a life of part-time jobs.

I work half time as the Youth Director at Hope Church in Winston-Salem. This means that I pick up high school kids from school and take them to Starbucks and the grocery store. I meet with them for Bible study on Wednesdays and teach Sunday school and plan things like lunches and days on orchards to pick apples.

I try to write for ten hours a week, working on my book. I never achieve ten hours because I don't have the discipline and life happens and it's the first thing I let fly, though writing my novel is my greatest hope and passion. Funny how we let things like that happen--let our passions linger on the sidewalk waiting for us while we keep holding up one finger, saying "one second!" with a look of apology on our faces.

Leading Young Life at Forsyth Country Day School is a volunteer thing, but ends up being another job which I love. Mark and I just got to spend three days at Windy Gap with 56 high school kids from our school and it was incredible. The other leaders in our area are some of the coolest people I've ever been friends with and I find myself doing work at the YL Office more often than anywhere else. Today, in fact, as I sat in the corner of Lauren's office, Murf (the area director) came in and, not seeing me, turned off the light. I realized that if I spoke I'd scare him half to death. So I spoke. And watched him teeter as a falling tree when the ax's final blow has severed the trunk. I actually thought he might crumble. We laughed and he apologized desperately for having used the bathroom just beside Lauren's office. "I don't use that bathroom when the girls are here!" he exclaimed. "I am so sorry you had to hear that." Life is a comedy.

My other job, working at the front desk at a local bone and joint doctor's office, is another ten hours a week. Mark calls it my "fun" job, mostly because he knows I spend the whole morning laughing. I work beside Natalie. She's a good girl, born and raised around here in Walnut Cove. She's married to Russell, has two daughters in high school and college and has worked at the office for over 15 years. She knows everyone. Somehow every person that migrates through our office has some kind of connection to Natalie or one of her four sisters or her mother. She's always telling me, "Ginny, it's a bad scene." On bad days, when seventy-year-old women wave their umbrellas wildly, refusing to pay their twenty dollar copay, she purses her lips and, in her southern tongue, orders me to follow her to "the closet" (the supply walk-in closet). Her eyes widen and, breathing fire, she'll call a spade a spade, use choice words to describe the man who demanded a second set of x-rays and the woman who picked twenty-two pieces of candy out of the candy bowl when she herself wasn't even being seen--her son was. Her son is forty. "It's pitiful," Natalie says. And all I can do is laugh.

october in winston-salem

2009-10-07T16:10:00.003Z

It is fall again. For those of you who have followed my blog for at least a year (thanks! What an honor) you know that I am completely besotted with the season that is upon us. The blinds stay open at all times, the windows stay up to welcome the crisp breeze. I have spent countless minutes sitting, staring, out the window above my writing desk. The boys play flag football in the city league every Tuesday night and I pace the sidelines with my arms crossed over my chest in an attempt at warming up, screaming every so often, and running down the sideline before I can stop myself. Hannah and I bought the most charming pumpkins at the farmer's market this week and today the leaves are falling, swirling in the breeze. It is my season of joy.

Autumn in West Chester was colder than it is here in North Carolina. I remember vividly running through the park at the end of Hillside Drive, kicking up the piles of leaves collected on the edges of the path. We could play for hours outside, my sister and me, even until dusk. I have no memory of gloves, only small white fingers turning red, then opaque with cold. My nose would run and when I reached up to wipe it with the back of my little cold hand, I would laugh at the numbness. The monkey bars, metal and painted yellow, were like ice and after swinging from rung to rung our hands smelled like cold metal. Inside, when it was time for dinner, the house felt so warm and my mother making stew on the stovetop would laugh and make us wash our hands from all of the dirt. We wore wool sweaters and jeans with saddle shoes, all hand-me-downs; we were ragamuffins with flyaway hair and a bottomless supply of imagination.

The need I feel for the outdoors must have been born all those years ago when we played outside all day. Our TV was small with a circular knob that could be turned to receive 4 stations. I wished for cable then, but I am thankful now.

Jonathan, my sister's son, is a year old now. We spend hours outside, picking up acorns and throwing them, examining sticks and bugs, exploring leaves and hoses and mulch. Hannah says that Jonathan wants to be outside all the time, that he cries and bangs on the door until she lets him free. I feel like that too, and as I sit here on this fall afternoon under this great blue sky, I'm thankful, again, for the season of great joy.

about the book...

2009-09-10T18:44:00.000Z

I should probably warn anyone who read my review of The Prince of Tides and went immediately to the store to buy a copy: there is some pretty brutal, graphic violence in the book. Obviously I hated reading these portions of the book, although the violence is a huge impetus in the plot. There were, however, parts I just about skipped over.

The book is still recommended by me, but with a big fat R rating spread across the front.

"The Prince of Tides"

2009-09-05T21:19:00.005Z

Because I am always looking for the next good book to read and because I feel like most of the books I begin are actually a bit disappointing, I think I'll begin writing book reviews as blog posts every once in a while. I know that to be a good writer one has to read good writing. It's a sort of teaching once you're out of college. However, considering the current state of my life I have precious little time to read. Therefore it takes an expertly written book to captivate me and hold me prisoner until the bitter end.

I was recently recommended The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy. Published in 1986, the year of my birth, the book was widely acclaimed and in 1991 made into a movie starring Barbara Streisand and Nick Nolte.

If you are looking for a worthwhile read, a book that will make you smirk and laugh aloud, a book that will make you turn 50 pages before you realize any time has passed at all, a book whose drama will roam like a tiger in the front of your mind even when you aren't reading it, a book that will make you cry soft, quiet tears, you just may want to pick up The Prince of Tides.

There is something about this story, told in its narrative excellence and quality of description, that is utterly captivating. It is the story of the Wingo family, told by the youngest son Tom. Tom, his twin sister Savannah and his brother Luke endure a childhood full of confusion, mystery, defeat, trauma, excitement and, most of all, camaraderie. It is the story of secrets and competition in a small southern town and relationships both deep and dysfunctional. It is brilliant, absolutely brilliant, and I devoured each and every page.

hhg vb bj,. <---that was Mark

A good friend and I decided to read this book together. We haven't had a chance to discuss the book yet, but via text she told me she found the book "good but disturbing." It's true. The plot isn't comfortable or "happy." In fact, I have spent a few nights a little restless thinking about the events of the novel with all of the strange plot twists and unnerving male characters, the wild setting of the book and the bizarre relationships and philosophies.

For four days I've been circling around and around, trying to figure out just what it is that is so beguiling about the Wingos and their ramshackle history. It is a story of humanity that doesn't feign beauty where it is vile. In some vein each of us carries threads of pain and humiliation, betrayal and suffering. But when it's all over, when the season of pain has come to a close, after all of the secrets and words and wounds, a rich ribbon of love between the Wingo siblings is redeeming. And a story tied with that kind of ribbon is the best kind of story because that is what we are each seeking in our stories, isn't it?

late august.

2009-09-01T18:32:00.002Z

In late Augusts back in my memory it has been so hot that the asphalt breathes up under your shorts and the soles of your flip flops seem to melt. Indebted to this time of year solely because of the birth of my precious baby brother and friend, I usually spend the month of August sweaty and ready for autumn.

Last weekend in Pittsburgh we were delighted when a cold snap moved, it seemed in deliberation, down from Canada and covered over western Pennsylvania. We spent the nights with the box fan running in front of the window in the upstairs hallway to bring in the coolest, silver air I've felt in months. I didn't realize how constricted breathing has been until that night breeze moved in over my covers and eased my respiration, forcing me to bring quilts up around my neck and dream outside of summer.

In autumn, it always surprises me, the haze of heat rises up into the atmosphere for good and every natural color is richer, darker. Back in Winston-Salem the J. Nissen building changes from red to brick red and the Third Street sign seems to glow in green and white. I am completely transfixed by the state of the world in fall.

Sur la Table is a store that specializes in housewares, mostly kitchen. During a massive downpour in the city on Friday, we ducked into the store front and looked around at pink and green mixers, a variety of box mixes for brownies and red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting straight out of Santa's house at the Pole. I purchased a set of nine miniscule cookie cutters shaped like leaves and acorns to make sugar cookies and ice them with orange and yellow and brown icing and sugar. I have to wait, but not for long.

...It is finally September, the base of the rise toward fall. Today the temperature has peaked at 75 degrees, down from last week's 88, and I'm sitting under an awning in the shade in long sleeves.

lake lure, nc.

2009-08-10T17:54:00.006Z

For the first annual Ficker family reunion, the Adams and Evans joined mom, dad and Kyle in the western North Carolina vista Lake Lure. Getting off the highway on Route 64, I was surprised to find that the scenery reminded me of the north, the lakes of Canada even, and the lake, when we hit it thirty minutes later, was breathtaking.

Last week dad designated Hannah to purchase the adult beverages and me to grab stuff for breakfast, namely coffee. We spent the weekend playing golf, riding horses in rivers, jetting around the lake on a pontoon boat, swimming and playing games for hours in the middle of the lake, watching baby Jonathan run a plastic car into walls, preventing him from falling down the wooden steps, drinking wine, playing the family favorite card game “May I” (everyone’s favorite game, except mine, however), drinking coffee, reading, sharing a great deal of conversation and family lore, taking walks, scaling mountains, and sitting out on the porch to enjoy our treehouse view.

A few highlights:

Saturday morning I took a walk up the mountain while the adults (Mom, Dad and Hannah) went looking at houses and lots. This walk turned into the Great Heavenward Hike and I thought my heart would very well cease to beat. I lived, fortunately. As I came around the corner on this “walk” I saw something in the middle of the road like a boulder. Coming closer there could be no mistaking this object—a turtle. Surely a car coming around the curve would hit the little guy and I knew he needed a rescue. However, there is a story that goes like this:

My mom tried to save a turtle once, similarly crossing a little road, and it JUMPED up in the air. The turtle which had leapt as high as her hip, gave her such a fright that she jumped back and left the thing alone. He obviously didn’t want help.

Unfortunately for Claire, her middle daughter is the only person on this great green earth that believes the story. My dad thinks she’s nuts, Kyle agrees. But mama and I know that the turtle leapt that day.

Approaching this turtle on the side of this very high and lovely mountain where there nary another soul could be found and my voice echoed cripsly in the valley beneath, what do you imagine was in my mind? This damn turtle is going to attack me. However something must have come over me, the non animal lover, and I couldn’t bring myself to leave the turtle. I approached, coaxing it aloud that it should not jump, bite, spin around and claw, or act in any other demonic way as I was simply trying to save it from destruction. It took me about three minutes to gather the courage to pick up the little shelled being and about ten seconds to walk it to the other side to which it was heading. On my way back down the mountain, the turtle was gone, probably running far away into the woods from my crazy self.

On Sunday I mentioned we spent several hours out on the lake. Dad had arranged a boat rental and we left the dock around three, just as the hazy rain lifted off of the mountain and the sun began to shine. There are tremendous houses on the lakeside, and there are simple houses that have withstood the increasing property value, the harsh mountains storms and the renovations of time. They are all quite beautiful for no other reason but that they are reflected on this crystal clear lake. We bobbed and sped around for a while until the boys had the itch to jump in. Anchored in the center of the lake, they all debated about the best way to jump in. I stood up on the edge of the boat and dove… they all followed. And, for an hour and a half, we played games in the very middle of the lake. Dad stood up on the boat, throwing the football to Kyle, Josh and Mark for points—this went through several championships (from States to Universe) and Hannah and I swam around, just enjoying the sunshine and fetching rogue footballs. Mom and Jonathan watched from the boat, laughing as Jonathan pointed to us in the water bewildered.

We also thought it'd be a good idea to get an old family picture...on the front of the pontoon boat. Note: they are tippable. Note: we tipped it, almost sunk the thing, and spent the rest of the afternoon with a water-logged floor. The picture below was taken when mom was trying to capture a nice, charming sibling picture. Josh shouted, "We're sinking!" and the rest is history...

(I can't explain the reason for the underlining-finicky computers...)

After playing hard during the day, we went to dinner at Larkin’s Restaurant and ate like queens and kings, listening to stories of dad in college, the year he drove to Mardi Gras and mom abroad, the time she was offered to join the harem of the richest man in Egypt and the time she lived with an assassin. Doesn’t quite seem real…

The stories, or the weekend. Too charming to be real.

family trip to butler, pa.

2009-07-26T01:49:00.004Z

Stefanie and Paul

Mark and Chris on the back deck

Mark and Me before a nice evening out

Doc and sweet Hannah

Mama Joyce, Lisa and Stef

an avenue of history

2009-07-07T20:56:00.002Z

The Evans are currently in "recovery"--we took a quick three-day trip to Sandbridge to be with my family, came back to Winston-Salem for one day of insane laundry and packing, and then off to Young Life's Crooked Creek Ranch as leaders from June 18-29 (four of those nights spent sleeping on a bus, one in a hotel and seven one the floor of a cabin at camp), then back home for a couple days, then a two-day trip to just northeast of Philly for the wedding celebration of Lauren Wells and Nate Eakin! Luckily Sunday night we were able to enjoy some Mexican food and margaritas with the Stogners in order to keep a grasp on some sort of sanity.

Although the onslaught of travels was a bit crazy, I have felt a sweet peacefulness these last few weeks. Sandbridge, the only place where us Fickers have maintained roots over the years, always welcomes me back with the untroubled predictability of the tide and the smell of salt in the air. Sand underfoot is never troubling, only comforting. We grew up there and we have enough memories to outnumber the broken shells on the beach. So many emotions and conversations and fits of laughter and sweet quiet mornings live inside of that old, rickety house on stilts.

To go spend a week at Young Life camp also takes me back to a rich time in my life. There have been times I thought that maybe I don't have "real" or "complete" memories from my childhood spent at Young Life camps with dad on staff assignments because I was so young and saw life through such rose-colored specs, but I've let those doubts go. I met Jesus at Young Life camp, not as a camper, but as a little kid ragamuffing around camp with her sister. It was as real to me then as it is now. Still now, when I return to camp, I wish my family were there with me and that the history wasn't history, but now.

Finally, our trip to Philadelphia deposited me once again into a sea of childish memories. Mark and I drove from Ashbridge Avenue down to Hillside Drive, the street where we lived when I was young. Our house was a perfect square, two stories, with a slanted roof and I remember thinking that the bedroom I shared with my sister was neat because the ceiling wasn't flat. I also remember looking out the window on the backyard with the large oak tree that I thought when I got old enough, I'd climb. Mom and I planted merrigolds every spring around the trees and in the flower beds out front. I chose merrigolds because they are bright orange and yellow, my favorite colors. We had a white picket fence around the small front yard that my dad built and painted one summer for my mom.

The house is pretty beat up now. I remember a blind man with a massive dog moved in after us and immediately tore down my dad's fence and put up a chain-link fence to keep the dog in. The brick porch out front, which had been crumbling but was, in my opinion, beautiful, is gone now and there is a concrete porch. There aren't merrigolds out front and it just seems strange and different. I don't know if I can even believe it is the same house. Our house was such a happy little house and memories of it make me want a small cape cod. The whole experience was bizarre, sitting in a Jetta with my husband in front of the house that was at one time my beloved castle and watching another family carry on inside.

Time is frightening to me, the way it passes and doesn't forgive or offer a second go. I miss and long for time that has passed and been stored away in the banks of my memory. But memory, that is the thing I am thankful for. It is a great calm and peace because of the joy of my own history.

a poem I wrote a fifteen months ago.

2009-06-12T18:47:00.002Z

This poem was written when Mark and I lived across states, before we were even engaged. These daydreams have actualized, except there are wild trees, rather than hills now, outside the window.

Most poems I've written lack a title.

I wake up to you

(you wake up

four hours south)

and my unopened eyes relish the glow

of the rising sun on your butterscotch face

(and closed blinds stack lightlines

on the wall)

Leaning upon my vanilla forearm I

kiss your temple

warm and wispy my butterfly lips

stir and you open your eyes,

azure, as the mountain sky

above organic hills outside of

my window.

519 lockland ave. apt. c

2009-05-16T01:43:00.007Z

Mark gave me a desk as a wedding gift. A gorgeous, antique, white, worn, delicate desk with round knobs and small drawers made to hold nothing larger than a few pencils or maybe cigarettes. Perfection. The desk sits catty-corner in the living room of our apartment beside an old chipped window that looks out on the great oak tree, now green with wet spring, that is so big it fills the windows along our entire apartment.

We live on the second floor of an old house in one of the most veteran areas of Winston-Salem, Ardmore. The houses in our neighborhood vary in size, from cottage to mansion, but they are all very complicated. That is the only word that fits: complicated. In a bewildering sort of way. The height of the trees and the diameter of the large tree trunks all around the windy streets divulge the great seniority of the streets. The North Carolina Baptist hospital is right around the corner and doctors walk home in lab coats for lunch and nurses linger on corners during their breaks.

The front porch of the house is crumbling. It is supposed to have a half-moon upper deck for us upstairs apartments, but the wood has gone utterly rotten and exposed soggy beams are held up by school bus yellow scaffolding. The house has been this way since before we rented it and looking back, it surprises me that we called the phone number on the "For Rent" sign posted there in the front lawn. The scaffolding seems beatnik, which I kind of like.

Walking into the foyer, where the door is never fully closed, there are four doors side by side. We are the third door from the left: Apartment C thank you kindly. It usually smells like burning incense there in the foyer because our downstairs neighbor is "into" that stuff I suppose. You can also just barely smell the incense, along with cigarette smoke, when you open the food pantry in the kitchen. Just a friendly reminder to mind our neighbors. There ya go, Jenny.

There isn't much room: a small bathroom with a window and a built in medicine cabinet whose mirror is permanently scuffed so that the reflection looks like an unfocused digital camera shot; a great kitchen with yellow walls and a window that looks out on the far left side of the great oak. Then there is a bedroom, dainty, and a wide odd-shaped living room we've painted green with the most fabulous four windows. The oak tree, which wraps itself around our entire half of the upstairs in a great hug, dangles leaves around the windows and casts an even more greenish tint on the room. Entirely winsome, the small space is pleasant and alluring and ours.

There are hardwood floors throughout the apartment, except in the kitchen and bathroom where there is tile. All of the misfit doors with their crystal doorknobs get stuck when they've been closed all the way, especially when the windows are open and it's rained or is raining. We've got some great furniture, hand-me-downs and a few generous wedding gifts, and a lot of photographs. There are few outlets--2 in the entire kitchen. One on the footboard just inside the doorway and one up toward the ceiling above the refrigerator. One on the footboard in our bedroom. We've got about a dozen extension cords to access electricity, running all up above door frames and down wall corners. And the windows... o, the windows. Did I mention how fetching the windows are?

Above my desk there is a black and white portrait in its original mahogany frame of my Grandaddy Jack. He is wearing a gray suit and a dark tie and he is holding a smoldering cigarette in his right hand, his elbow propped up on the desk before him. He looks like Steinbeck in the picture, sophisticated and entirely brilliant. The photograph is the perfect crest to the perfect writer's haven.

symphony

2009-05-11T19:59:00.002Z

My name is different now, although I'm having trouble figuring out the way you change your name with Google... all of its e-mail, blog and record-keeping functions. In fact I think that this name change process is going to be quite a feat.

Old name: Virginia Leigh Ficker. It's a good name though I've had my fair share of complications with Ficker, as one could imagine.

New name: Virginia Leigh Evans. Ginny Evans. That's a cute name. Glad I'll be able to publish with that one.

Mark and I got married in Greensboro last Saturday, May 2nd. The weekend, from the rehearsal to my sister's toast at the reception could be summed up in a word: charming. Charming like a dream... Mark and I discussed the dreamlikeness of it all over pina coladas, in fact, next to the Caribbean Sea on Saint Lucia. We really were next to something huge. That may also have been a dream, though I don't think it rains in dreams so perhaps not.

A good friend from an earlier time in my life sent me a note to make sure that I wasn't giving up on writing, specifically blogging, after my recent rejection from the Creative Writing Program at UNC-G. I am not, however the wedding and honeymoon did detain me for a little too long and I am also working on a book which takes most of my spare time given to writing. So to anyone who does tune in and has wondered, I'll try to get back onto my regular blogging schedule.

On the honeymoon I read a book called "The Gathering." It's an Irish novel which, like Irish literature always does, left me feeling kind of dumpy for a few hours after I finished. Something about that country and its writers digs really deep and sticks inside me and it's all very mournful. I had a great mentor in high school who had this deep deep love of Ireland born of the literature and I can understand that more with each work I read. And although I couldn't directly relate to the plot of this novel, the writing was incredible. I mean, just dripping with gorgeous symbolism and rich, buttery language. Like listening to some great symphony. Good writing is like pulling off at a gas station when your gas light is on and re-fueling to drive another couple hundred miles. I came off the beach at 6:15 that evening anxious to get back to my little white desk and my little white computer to keep trying, the joy of trying, to write measures that will, in time, be symphonies.

close the door, open the window.

2009-04-01T01:12:00.003Z

Despite my hopes, the Graduate School of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro will carry on in the fall of 2009 without me. I applied to the Masters of Fine Arts program in creative fiction back in December and found out Saturday that they aren't really all that interested in me. I got the steel-toed boot.

I want to write and to teach writing. To teach, I'd need a degree, so I'm out one... for now. Luckily I'm not out both. The latter only requires some protected time and my sweet friend Dora, the MacBook.

During the winter I had this stagnated posture with writing. It's scary to write a book, at least for me. It feels like there is a story, which I vaguely know, that is too complex to tell. Once I realized back in February that my only reason for waiting around was this brewing fear, I started over. I ditched the old book I'd started in the summer and began again at square one. This was simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating considering that I had poured hours into this amorphous plot. I filed it away on Dora's hard drive for good.

I'm a good way into the second attempt now and, aside from a few afternoons of writer's block, it's going quite beautifully. I decided, par the advice of Lamott, to let the book write itself, to let the plot make its way like a secret garden. It's finally going well.

Rejection is the infamous horror for, well, everyone. When I found out I didn't get into school, I felt like a dandelion twice run over by a car. For some reason known only to the heavens every person within 100 miles that loves me was either out of town or busy, so I cooked myself some dinner, drank a glass of Yellowtail, and watched "Marley and Me," which made me cry a little more. I guess I needed some solo digestion time. Which I did: I digested, I cried, I sat on the floor with my back against the sink cabinet and began to think maybe I never even had any ability to tell a story, much less write a sentence, and then I let the less dysfunctional half of my brain smack the pathetic side and I stood up.

And I got back to work on my book.

blogger dies in Iranian prison.

2009-03-21T13:31:00.003Z

Friday morning I read an article about a man about my age in Iran who recently died in prison. He was in prison because he insulted a "supreme leader" on his blog. His name was Omid Mir Sayafi. He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, but he died long before those years came close to passing from improper medical attention.

All politics aside, this news bite stopped me in my tracks. I realize that I don't typically go off on political leaders or say overly racy things on my blog posts, but if I felt passionate about something like that, if I wanted to deride the President or make a commentary on religion, I could. The only commentary would likely be banter, at most sparking a debate, but then it would all just move on through like a summer rain storm.

I think about writing and how precious it is to me, the way the written word is in many ways eternal, an anthem that began before him and lasts long after the writer dies. How God himself is the Word. Everyone is a writer, really. We have the gift of speech and labyrinthine communication--how tremendous! This is God's gift to the human race, and yet not everyone is able to practice his right to write, no pun intended.

After the story shocked me, I got pretty sad about it, just thinking about all the writers in the world who can't open the door and unleash their passion. It made me kind of sick. It still makes me sad, but I'm also thankful now too. Makes me want to write further, to extend my vocabulary and tell more stories, to contribute to this anthem that's been written for thousands of years since the light first separated from the dark.

Spring on the Northern Coast

2009-03-18T17:25:00.002Z

Up north on the coast

Spring is no new season at all.

I remember dense damp fog,

the sky was gray and plump

geese with long black necks

flew as arrowheads slicing slate clouds.

I remember the air so cold and wet-

my skin stayed moist and my nose

became red.

The beach on the sound, rocky

with smooth stones and

we took off our socks and shoes

and splashed in the lapping folds of the sea.

Our feet turned opaque on the soles

and in the toes.

We rolled up our blue jeans and

our raincoats collected droplets from the

tide and from the dripping sky.

We laughed at the sound seagulls make.

Dad panned the old shore for

segments of memories. He held

the leash and patted the golden retriever

saying, "Good girl, Sadie."

Elizabeth Gilbert in winston-salem.

2009-02-23T00:25:00.004Z

Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of the wildly popular Eat, Pray, Love, came to Winston-Salem to speak as a featured participant in the city's Bookmarks series. Friday afternoon I saw the newspaper article announcing her coming and quickly picked up my cell phone to order a ticket. There are some things whose urgency transcends even the narrowest of budgets.

All day I had that nervous excited feeling in the bottom of my stomach. When I thought about what I would actually say if I got the chance to ask a question or, gasp, talk to her face-to-face it felt like my insides were carbonated and someone picked me up, turned me over and shook me hard a few times. Sort of the sick, unnerved feeling I would get in sixth grade just before informing my father of a D on my math test. I actually laughed aloud in the restroom of the conference center when I realized how ridiculously overwhelmed I was. It's just a woman, Ginny. Just like you, only dazzlingly brilliant and utterly published.

You know, I walk around the avenues of my life thinking my passion for writing and chapters and adjectives qualifies me as crazy until I go to a conference where heaps of writers are present in bulk. It is then that I feel most normal... not that a room full of highly introspective, overly observant artistic individuals would necessarily be considered "normal."

The older women are strikingly beautiful. Many wear their lustrous grey hair long and their lips are always red, magazine shiny. Most of them wear these gorgeous chunky sweaters and corduroys like they should all live in Maine somewhere. They appear thoughtful with deep kind eyes and such colorful faces. Writing must be some kind of youth fountain. There were only a few men, mostly in their forties and fifties I'd guess, with tweed and gray blazers and penetrating focused gazes, devilishly handsome in their seasoned age.

There are the young writers too. One woman brought her little baby in yellow fleece pajamas with feet. That made me wish they made those for adults. She was tall with her long dark hair pulled back haphazardly in a bun. The baby crawled around quietly at her feet. It occurred to me how rare for a child to stay so quiet for two hours.

My neighbor, reading a workbook on how to facilitate your creative growth in the workplace, had written at the top of her page, I want to be my mother--my mother wanted to be me. I smiled, understanding her anxiety to secure the fleeting notions, sensing our unspoken camaraderie.

Elizabeth sat on the stage in the front in a large red leather chair. I scooted to the edge of my seat to listen. I wouldn't move until it was over. She spoke like on a Sunday afternoon, like she was sitting on the porch discussing memories with an old friend. She said that writing depends on three factors: talent, luck and hard work. You can only control one of them, she said.

She cited an old Brazilian adage that her husband, Jose, says: Listen to the whispers or soon you will be listening to the screams. She said that some people are unsung as heroes though heroes they be. She said that it is easier to tell the truth than to make up fiction, so write about the truth.

"I get so excited by people," she said. "There is so much weird variation." I wanted to jump up and down and say, Me too! Me too! Fortunately I still had a foot on the ground so I held my tongue. It dawned on me during the interview that I resonated with this woman who I esteem so highly--I could really relate to the things she said. This infused me with a great deal of confidence about my own journey as a writer and made me want to go immediately home to log some pages on my own book.

Absorbing her aura, her humor, her wisdom, her kindness and her folksy storytelling, I teetered between merry tears and laughter for the short hour and a half. At the end we all lined up like school children at lunch and waited for our books to be signed, a strange ritual we cling to. I spoke briefly to her as she signed her name on the title page of her novel Stern Men and I wished for something worthwhile to say but came up with nothing. Typical. But later I recalled something she said that will propel me and stay with me, I think, forever. She had said this:

There is no assurance with writing. You just have to do it and then see where it goes.

If you're reading this, Elizabeth Gilbert, thank you.

chapel songs.

2009-02-10T20:24:00.003Z

I wish I could say that every Sunday I spend in church is a rich, overflowing time for my spirit. That the songs we sing permeate my frustrations and that the sermon pierces right through all of my preconceptions and my judgments and that I walk out of the middle school where we meet totally upheaved and re-written.

This is not the case. Due to my utter humanness I often find that I sort of grovel through the service hoping to pick up nuggets, grabbing them and shoving them into my pocket like a beggar on the streets of Boston. I leave the service in a wrestling match between what I am and what I want to be. My feet are in my sneakers and eternity is in my heart. So for now, I try and I wait.

After our pastor gives the sermon on Sunday morning, the music team piles back up on stage to play another set of songs. They kind of scurry up there like mice while he prays, asking the LORD to please sow the seeds of the Word in our hearts and I, in my own little lap, beg for it. Sometimes my first reaction is to be irritated by that song that I don't feel like singing, but I am learning, have patience with me, that it isn't really about what I like or don't like. It's about singing songs that will take to the skies all the way up to heaven. So this week when I was singing the songs I closed my eyes and imagined what it must be like for God to hear a whole church sing a song to him, about him.

We sang Be Thou My Vision, a hymn that I have sung so many, so many times. I love this hymn. The words are like a blazing fire that emits such a force of heat that you can feel it all around and inside you. And do you know how a fire, all of its smells and glorious popping light, is somehow comforting in its grandeur? This is the way that this hymn, with its music and its words, is to me. And, like a fire, it has the capacity to make me feel so incredibly tiny and powerless.

Our church is what people today would call "Contemporary," meaning that the music is more up-beat than many churches. They add some spunk to this particular hymn but on Sunday, around the fourth verse, all of the instruments deadened except for the drum, played by this total rocker college kid. The auditorium filled with the voices of the congregation and this tremendous Celtic drum beat. The sound was audacious and, at last, I could imagine God really listening to our singing that colossal anthem.

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise.

Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:

Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,

Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

meals in minutes.

2009-01-29T21:51:00.004Z

Stuart bought a cookbook recently, "Meals in Minutes," in a new concerted effort to learn to cook. The selling point of this book is that you can throw together a delicious well-balanced meal quickly. The intro reads: "Sharing homemade meals is a fading ritual, too often replaced by television or a slice of pizza ... However, you hold in your hands the book that shows you how to create wonderful dishes without a lot of fuss and bother."

On Wednesday night he was going to make some curried chicken with rotini dish. At two-thirty he was pulling the meat out of the freezer and asked if Mark and I wanted to join the family for dinner. Of course! Well would you mind picking up three more cans of this... he looks at the can... reduced fat Cream of Chicken soup? I'm on it, I said.

When I brought the soup home the chicken was no longer on the counter-top. I guess the dinner process was already underway. I put the soup on the counter and left, yelling up the stairs that I would be home by 6:45. Dinner would be served, I was informed, at 7:15. Wake Forest would be playing Duke in basketball so we would eat in front of the TV. Please refer back to the Cookbook's tag line.

The smell of something hit me when I walked in the basement door from outside. My apartment has its own entrance and I was surprised to smell dinner all the way downstairs. Mark arrived and we discussed the wedding over a glass of wine while waiting for dinner.

Around 7:20 Kim marched down the stairs in her flannel pajama pants and red fleece, classic post-work-I-don't-care-I'm-not-leaving-the-house garb.

"Time for dinner?" I asked, getting up.

"No." She rolled her eyes with a laughing in them. "We're having frozen Costco pizza." Please refer back to Cookbook tag line again.

"What?? What happened to Chicken Curry Cream Pasta thing? He's been working on it all day!"

"Well, yeah, you know you'd think that you couldn't botch a meal in minutes, wouldn't ya. Well apparently Stuart added two entire--" making a little hand motion to indicate the two-inch-tall plastic container, searching for the right word "--things of curry powder! And then, you know, it tastes awful so he keeps adding more milk! I mean he's got about three huge cookers full of this curried milk sauce. You have to get the milk up to temperature but he got impatient so he turned the heat up under the pot and scalded the milk! So two gallons of milk, all this chicken, curry powder, vegetables... we're throwing it out. It stinks up there, like something rotting. It's foul."

Mark and I were laughing at this point.

"But thanks to Costco we have pizza. Y'all want some pizza?"

We nodded, my eyebrows raised.

"So what is Stuart doing right now?" I asked.

"Well the Wake Forest game is on now, so he's lost any concern about dinner. He's up there with a glass of wine and his buddy's here..."

She laughed and tossed her hair back as she turned toward the garage door to get the pizza. "I swear..."

Lesson: the only simple thing is spaghetti and meals in minutes don't exist, at least not around these parts.

it's cold here.

2009-01-25T18:50:00.002Z

It is cold here. Last week the temperatures were down in the "teens" and my car hesitated to start when I tried it for work. We had two days in the fifties but the cold still felt thick--like maybe it's so far inside of me by this point that the actual temperature doesn't factor in. My bones are in frozen hibernation and the only respite is Florida.

My apartment is a basement and the door to the outside doesn't quite close all the way. I have a long skinny pillow with a design of row houses painted on it that is meant to be stuffed down at the bottom of the door to prevent the air from wafting in down low to the ground. This is fairly effective, however there is also a gap between the door and the rest of the door frame. I can look through and see a little line of light. The little pillow doesn't frame the whole door, dang it. The thermostat is upstairs so there isn't much I can do about this except to turn on the gas fire place when I'm home for long enough. Then I wrap myself up in a fleece blanket and sit on the brick fire place to warm up. I've also resorted to running my hands and feet under scalding water in the sink, wearing five layers, doing the dishes more often by hand and making sure to fold the laundry when it is just out of the dryer.

The low body degree issue is compounded by a few things. For instance I am addicted to ice water. My cells are probably on the verge of explosion because I drink so much water. There are these insulated no-sweat plastic cups called Tervis Tumblers and they have straws. These things go everywhere with me full of ice and water. I probably drink over 150 ounces of water a day, no joke, and my sister commented on how even when she was 8 months pregnant I peed more than she did. It might be a problem. So it's freezing cold and then I guzzle cold liquids. No wonder my guts are frozen.

I am also an outdoors person. We're not talking camping, I don't have any great desire to be rugged. However I have a real need to be outside and in natural light. In fact I can hardly stand to be inside during the daylight hours. Windows help, but since I live in the basement the best option for me is to, obviously, go outside. So I do. Sometimes I go for a walk around the neighborhood and call my mom to catch up. Holding the cell phone turns my hands into ice. Sometimes, though, I just sit outside on the deck and read. It's thirty-five degrees and my body is shivering with cold, but I have to be outside. So I sit there as long as I can possibly stand it and read. Just finished Kite Runner. Had to read the last few chapters inside. It helped that it was gray out.

Winter is good for Christmas and snow, but I'll be glad to dismiss it come... March?? Please say yes.

january snow.

2009-01-21T23:05:00.003Z

I recently read an excerpt from a book that said this: "to pray means to wait for the God who comes." It is in God's identity--One who comes.

Ever since I read that it has remained in my mind, dusting my thoughts like powdery white snow that swirls around on the pavement and only accepts the faintest footprints. So I guess it was something I had needed to hear.

It seems like this road has been so daggum windy. I can only see two feet ahead and then the pavement makes another jarred curve and I drive in blind with only minute confidence that there will not be a car, or a herd of grazing water buffalo, in my lane on the other side. I feel tired because I wait and yet have no idea what is coming. UNCG would do me a huge service to tell me if they'll take me for their Writing Master's program because the not-knowing is turning me into something of a plastic wind-up duck.

We've got these married friends who went out on a limb to move down here to North Carolina. They live in an apartment complex. It's nice, but they decided it was time to move on. They found a house and jumped through about seventy-five loops, all hung up high in the air, some of them on fire, to buy this house. And they love it--it's got a big lawn with a slight hill in the back. There are a few other houses around but everyone is neighborly. They have two big dogs, a lab and a golden retriever, and my friends just want so badly to live in a place where the dogs can run around and play.

So they had it all lined up and then they hit a snag. His company won't write a letter declaring he's got a consistent full-time job, even though he does and has worked there for three months, because they're "working on their budget." Now they can't close on the house. They are living out of boxes, borrowing spare bed rooms and using other folks' washers and dryers. My friend, the girl, who is the most delightful soul, her eyes are turning red with stress and the other night, when I saw her laugh at someone's joke, I realized it was the first time I'd seen a real smile out of her in a good while. This week all I can say to her is that she has to wait for the God who comes.

That's the catch about God coming-- you have to wait.

On Monday night my almost-husband left late after a movie. He wasn't gone ten seconds before he busted back through the door, picked me up in my plaid cotton pants and sweatshirt, ran outside and spun me around under the radiant moon. I laughed and shrieked and gasped... it was snowing.

On Tuesday morning I awoke and when the sun finally rose I, in some bizarre ritual, stepped outside in a tank top. The street was silent and it the earth was white. I expected the quiet to linger, as it does on snow mornings, but then I heard the most peculiar sound. I walked out further and heard my neighbors--a five-year-old and two-year-old toe head--shrieking and calling out, "Dad! See this?!" It was so early, but the kids ran and laughed and dragged their dad by his gloved hands down into the snow.

I don't know what it is, between the waiting for this One who does come, the small measure of faith that we cling to, and that sweet soft snow and they way it seemed to cover over a multitude of troubles. But I think I believe it deep down, that God will come.

"God is thrust onward by his love, not attracted by our beauty. He comes even in moments when we have done everything wrong..."

papa introduces Jonathan to Seinfeld.

2009-01-10T16:36:00.000Z

one night last fall.

2009-01-09T20:58:00.004Z

It was in the fall, probably November. He called me to come over--it was 10:00 on Sunday night. I was tired and already in sweat pants and a rugby shirt I'd inherited from my brother. But of course I'd go.

When I pulled up he came out, saying, "let's go for a drive." I almost whined, "but I have to get up early..." but in some attempt to embrace impulse, didn't. I held my tongue and decided ah hell, one late night won't kill me.

We got in his car and he looked at me and said, "where should we go?" I shrugged, a bit confused. "Business 40?" I suggested, "Through downtown?" There is something about city lights at night--any city. But the center of Winston-Salem at night is majestic in its isolated height and uncanny quiet. It is heavenly, and the city charm can make anybody feel dazzling. It's inviting and warm and sparkling with contrast. Janitors and night watchmen have keys and they turn on the night lights in the city.

We drove down the expressway and got off on Cherry Street. Weaving around down in toward Fourth and Trade, we got mixed up and turned around on one-way streets and turn-abouts. Fall had come that day, a swift overhaul of any residual summer warmth. It was eerie the way all the lights were on. Everyone, like aggravated turtles, was tucked up at home to avoid the cold wind.

With wide open parking, Mark pulled up by an apartment complex. He looked at me and turned off the engine, smirking.

"But I'm in sweatpants!"

He just smiled and got out of the car.

I opened the door and shuddered when the wind diced right through my cotton coverings. He grabbed a long sleeve shirt from his golf bag in the trunk and threw it to me. We ventured into a parking deck and came out to the landing which afforded a view of the skyline. I'm sure I gaped and he, less concerned with city lights, wrapped his arms around me and lifted me up, stretching his neck to place a kiss my jaw bone as I looked at the light pouring out of the tall domed building that you can see from a thousand points around town.

I smiled, a gesture for the stars, as he spun me around. And then, setting my feet back on the asphalt, he put his hands on my frozen face and I kissed him.

We walked up the street and turned right on Fifth, toward First Baptist, whose stained glass window glowed with colors.

"We look like we're homeless," I said, flopping the unfilled sleeves of his large men's shirt that draped off the ends of my hands in his face.

We stopped in front of a mural wall, holding hands, and craned our necks to see the picture. It was too close so we crossed the ghost street to get a better scope.

"Weird," he said of the ambiguous figures. We both laughed. "I mean really, what is that supposed to be?"

The traffic lights switched dutifully from green to yellow to red to green again, though in the whole universe there wasn't a car on the road.

almost three years old.

2009-01-03T23:25:00.003Z

My niece to be, Hannah, took me to the park for an outing this afternoon. We didn't get out the door until about 4:45 so the sun was already set and it was getting cold.

Hannah will be three in February but she talks as if she is a twelve-year-old college student. She is more articulate than most of my peers. She walked me down the street, instructing me to "hold hands" and "jump on the grass" when cars drove by. I am baffled by nice family neighborhoods without sidewalks, as is the condition of our neighborhood. She stopped and sniffed at every little thing that was out of the ordinary for the side of the street.

"This is somebody's pay," she said, pointing to a renegade grocery receipt that was stuck in the mud.

"Do you see this?" she asked me, pointing her toe into a pile of mud.

"Yes," I replied.

"It's dirt. Don't step there, your shoes will track it in the house."

Ten four.

She told me to watch when she ran and to look at her when she jumped up high. There are days when this sort of dilly-dallying makes me irritated, but today I enjoyed it. It's really entirely stupid to let myself become annoyed since the purpose of our time together is for her enjoyment and if all it takes is marveling at a lost receipt, then I should really be counting my blessings.

When we got to the park, we played house for a while and then hit the swings. She had me put her in the swing that has four leg holes and then gave me instructions.

"Aunt Ginny, I want to go super high."

So I pushed her high. Usually I'd pretend to give a big push but take it easy so that the kid didn't fly out of the swing and hit the wood chips. But I didn't do that, I really pushed her as hard as I could, and she just soared. For a hot second I thought, "Too hard?" But she came down laughing and sputtering like a little monkey. Precious, so sweet it made me laugh out loud. And then she just laughed harder, and I pushed her again.

"The moon is out already," I said.

"Where?" she asked, craning her head on the down swing to find the elusive moon behind her right shoulder.

"Up there," I pointed and she turned and spotted it. "Where do you suppose the sun went?"

After a brief pause, she said, "He's up there behind the sun."

She asked me to stop her so she could look and really see. I grabbed her little feet and she came to a halt. With both hands she wiped her blonde hair, all sticky with static, from her face and stared at the moon.

"There's a man on the moon," I said. "Sometimes you can see his face, when it's totally round."

She looked at me skeptically.

"He makes sure you're okay when you sleep."

She smiled at the thought and then told me that the sun probably sits up with the moon too. I laughed, and that made her laugh.

high school band at pier 39.

2008-12-14T17:35:00.004Z

A group of kids played sweet Christmas melodies down by the wharf in San Francisco. One little boy--the smallest one--played his pipe organ with a hammer and held his floppy booklet of songs with his left hand. He was the only one in a Santa hat and he hammered his pipes with perfect precision. Precious Christmas boy!

to applaud december.

2008-12-08T03:24:00.004Z

A few days ago I overheard a lady say, "the month of December is awful because I want to be able to slow down to take in the meaning of the season, but it's so packed and busy that it always flies by too fast." And while I can understand her sentiment, I think I'm going to disagree.

My mother would say I am a glutton for over-commitment and December is most definitely the month of commitments. From Christmas parties to end-of-the-whatever parties, Christmas shopping to making sure you fit in every last tradition (cookie making, "White Christmas" viewing, stringing lights, sending cards, going to various performances, etc.)... there are definitely more than twenty-five things to do. This means that on top of normal life responsibilities which, in every other month of the year take up every bit of your time each day, you are expected to fit in this whole laundry list of "Christmas things"--and more than one per day! It is indeed a jingle bell marathon.

I've been thinking this week, just about what that lady said. And that's on top of how often I hear that we've "lost the spirit of Christmas" or that it's "gone commercial." December-bashing is almost as common as political banter it seems.

But isn't it glorious the way that magic sort of sprinkles down over this month? Isn't there something beautifully comforting about the rich green garlands and ruby red Christmas bows that decorate Nordstrom starting days before Thanksgiving? I have found myself recently wandering to places like Starbucks and walking around neighborhoods where folks string up gaudy lights and erect blow-up snow men because of what a joy the traditions are for me.

This weekend I ran in a race called the "Mistletoe"--Winston-Salem's half marathon of the last 25 years. I ran beside an older gentleman for a while who informed me that he had run this race every year since it had begun. he was wearing green tights, stocking shorts and a red t-shirt. He had bells stuffed into his socks that jingled with each step and a ridiculous elf hat. What fun! And today I bundled up to go to a free performance of Handel's Messiah put on by the local community purely in the spirit of celebration after attending a Young Life Christmas party where there were no less than twenty-seven different casseroles.

I think it comes down to this: Christmas is the season that we celebrate the good news--Jesus has come to be with us! The words O come, Thou Day Spring, come and cheer our spirits by thine advent here. Disperse the gloomy clouds of night and death's dark shadows put to flight. Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel shall come to thee, O Israel! are indeed my portion and perhaps it is the reminder of Christmas--Christ's birth--every December that gives me the strength to make it through one more year. As Madeleine L'Engle said in her poem Into the Darkest Hour, "the stable is our heart."

Some things are ridiculous, like the inflatable six-foot snow globe with the Nativity scene in the yard on the corner of Lindbergh and Country Club, but it is fun to laugh. And I am thankful for Bing and Nat and their sweet Advent lullabies, for the peppermint coffee drinks and the Home Alone marathons on cheap TV because at the heart of the joy and merriment is the precious keeping of Jesus born in Bethlehem in a sheep pen. Sweet sweet December, thank you for hosting my heart in this celebration season.

the corner where they lived.

2008-12-01T01:25:00.007Z

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving we drove in toward Pittsburgh from Butler--Mark's home town. We got as far as the city outskirts to a little place called Mount Lebanon. Pittsburgh is nestled down in a valley where three rivers meet, the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers. The hills that rise up, including the famed Mount Washington, surround the city as the porcelain walls of a bathtub. They are dotted with simple homes and nondescript structures--old mills and sheds of sorts. Pittsburgh's history lies in the steel industry and the city people are hard working. It is an aged and solemn city.

The street winds around up Mount Lebanon and passes houses that grow by the block. The oldest houses, found up on top of the hill, are structurally unique, built with mortar and stone and sharp angled roofs. The yards are small--every house seems like a well postured gentry standing in his square foot guard post.

As we wound through the neighborhoods, I realized we would pass Mark's folks' first house. They had met working at the city hospital--a nurse and a young doctor--and fallen in love in the courtly city. Doc had grown up on Mount Lebanon and when he and Joyce were married, they decided to start back at his beginning. We drove around corners and sucked in our breath as the Honda squeezed between a row of parked cars and a passing Lexus. The houses were framed with red and white Christmas lights and in the early dark we passed heedless window people cooking dinner and picking toys up off of the ground.

Doc pulled up in front of a house on a steep hill. "This is it," he said, crouching down to look up out of the passenger window. "This is the house I grew up in." We all looked and I was smiling, and nobody had anything to say. We drove on down the block and made a few turns, pulling up again in front of another house, smaller, with the front door open and the light shining out onto the lawn.

Joyce put her hand on Doc's shoulder and said,"there's our first house." Turning to her husband she said,"don't you just miss Mount Lebanon?"

He chuckled and as he pulled away he glanced back out of the window and exclaimed, "those are my steps!"

"Oh yeah! Mark, your father built those steps down from the porch to the back. There weren't steps when we moved in." She looked back at him and said, "That's your carpentry-- holds up a long time." She sighed and watched out the window as we drove around down the hill.

We ate dinner in a quaint restaurant in the neighborhood around the corner from where Joyce used to walk the girls when they were babies and she would wait for Doc to get home from work. "One time," she explained, "I had Lisa in the stroller and I tipped it and she fell right into the gutter. And then Stef started screaming, 'Mommy! The baby!' I had to tell her to hush because, of course, all of the rich Mount Lebanon mothers are walking through town and here I am, this young mother, throwing my child in a gutter." She shook her head and laughed at the memory. It was sweet to watch her delight in memories that poured forth so heedlessly.

Outside it was windy and cold, but inside it was cozy. The restaurant had once been someone's home; our reserved table was in an upstairs bedroom of sorts, only the walls had been punched out. We drank wine and laughed about stories that took place long before Mark and I could be found anywhere but God's ledger. How thankful I was to put a hand on a place which, to me, was merely a place but to them was the backdrop of an era.

father and son.

2008-11-17T02:32:00.005Z

There are two partners in the bankruptcy law firm where I work, a father and son. Mr. Lawyer, Sr. lives vicariously through his younger son who, despite Sr.'s beliefs, is quite a bit less interested in law than his father. I think he'd much rather teach Russian or Spanish in a University somewhere up north, but he is waiting in line to take over his father's law firm. Dad continues to press son to do things that I believe he himself would rather like to do but thinks he can't because his prime time is over. One of these ventures is a local civil service position.

Son lawyer recently ran for this position of Environment Overseer in the elections. His name was buried in the pile of indiscriminates on the back of the ballot that are hardly ever read and less often marked. The position is one that less than three percent of the population has any care about and, to top it all off, his was the last name on the list.

Going into the elections he knew that he was unlikely to win based on voting trends and statistics on how locals know almost nothing about their local elected officials. However his father spent hours creating visually appealing advertisements for the local papers, meticulously editing slogans, making phone calls and collecting a band of voters to back his son. Lawyer Jr.'s mother made buttons that she distributed to her friends and placed in buckets on the counter at her nail salon and dry cleaner. This was a family affair which, by some unfair default, I was dragged into. Apparently the position of "Receptionist" has no clear limitations or boundaries. Several hours of my time on the clock in the law office were spent stapling signs to metal stakes to be stuck on corners around town. One morning of sign construction I was even chastised for placing my staples too far apart. "Do you think those will really hold up?!" Lawyer Sr. asked me exasperated. Good grief.

He took the day off on November 4th to campaign at the polls on the outskirts of town. The two paralegals and I waited with bated breath for the results.

He didn't win. I came in a few minutes before nine on Wednesday morning and Rene told me he'd come in second out of four with twenty-seven percent. The other guy got thirty-four. I was surprised by my own disappointment. It was raining too, and cold.

At 9:45 he came into the office, a few minutes before his first appointment of the day. He was red-faced and his short hair was pressed down matted on the left side. His collar was flipped up on one side revealing the neck of his striped tie.

"Morning," I said kindly, quietly. He responded with a somewhat spastic hello and he seemed flustered. After getting a brief summary from Rene, he retreated to his office. Nobody had mentioned the election. Everyone knew he'd lost. It was bizarre, a big fat orange elephant in a very small parlor that had, over the past thirty-six hours, grown in importance to everyone. Everyone, that is, except Lawyer Sr., to whom the election had always been of the highest importance.

His first appointment was a no-show, so he stayed in his office. At one point I poked my head into his door to ask him about a file. As I left I said, "hey, sorry about the election."

"Oh! It's okay! Those things happen, you know? That's just the way it goes sometimes!" He exclaimed it like a city hot dog hawker selling lunch to passers-by. I was startled and nodded, eyes wide.

A gentleman came in not long after that. He walked through the door regally, though his clothes were worn out with his rumpled white hair. He walked right up to the window and said, "Is Mr. Lawyer Jr. in today?"

His confidence took me back, considering most of the people who come to that window are generally beaten down and pretty miserable. He asked if he could see Lawyer Jr. and I asked if he had an appointment.

"Oh, no appointment necessary! I just wanted to commend him on the election! It was a good race, commendable."

I went back to the office and pushed the door open.

"Wil," I said, "an old client of yours is here. Says he wants to commend you on the election."

He did come out of his office to the window and that old bankrupt businessman shook Wil's hand and told him what a fine job he'd done running for the position and what a fine man he was in this community of Winston-Salem. And all Wil could say was "thanks" and nod his head. But when the man walked out the door and Wil walked back to his office, it finally felt like the tension had broken. Wil even made a joke about having fewer meetings to worry about. Of course, when his father came in I thought he might just break down into tears. But I guess there are some things that just have to be left alone.