I hate not writing for so long, so here I am. I'm in Zimmerman Library (the main library at the University of New Mexico), and I have a stack of six books about Oscar Wilde on the desk waiting for me. In the next couple of hours I'll be - I hope - finishing up a paper for my English Lit class that's due tomorrow.

I'm writing about the significance of fractured identities in Wilde's famous "The Importance of Being Earnest." If it turns out to be any good, maybe I'll even post part of it. Lately I've found myself wanting to "publish" bits of my schoolwork that I'm particularly proud of.

I thought about writing on Stevenson's "Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde" for this topic, but I chose the play because I've never thought of it as anything more than a ridiculous, witty comedy. But, thanks to my English Lit class, I see it in a new light: a biting commentary on Victorian society and ideals, a practical mockery of traditional forms of theatre and character, as well as traditional ideas about romance. Well, I'm not sure about that last part. In my paper, I'm more arguing that Wilde is not saying that love and marriage in Victorian society is shallow and foolish; my thesis is, roughly, that Wilde respects love, marriage and commitment, but the strict standards of Victorian society stifle and hinder his character's achievement of them.

We'll see how it turns out.

In terms of publishable work, I got a pleasant surprise in the form of my graded short fiction story that I turned in for my creative writing class. My professor LOVED it; I got a 100%, and I'm not even sure if it's entirely possible for anyone to get a 100% on a paper, especially a piece of creative writing, but it's nonetheless flattering. Aside from some minor suggestions of paragraph placement, sentence editing and perhaps one or two paragraphs added in to expand on some ideas, my professor thought it was great. He told me I should submit it to be published when I'm done revising it, and that he can help me do so.

The shocking thing about all of this is that I felt like my short story was crap. Well, not complete crap, but I certainly wasn't intensely proud of it. It was really challenging to write; I feel that poetry comes much more naturally to me. But that's the funny thing I'm learning about being an artist, of any form; you never know how your work is going to be received, which is a good and a bad thing. I may hate a piece, but my professor turns around and adores it. On the flip side, though, that leaves the possibility for me to love a work of mine, and others to think it's not that great.

It's so tricky with writing. There's definitely a line between good writing and bad writing; if something's bad, you know it's bad. But on each side of that line, there's a very large gray area in which it's hard to say, especially, I find, when I'm critiquing my own writing.

And, of course, what constitutes "good" writing has changed throughout the centuries, as well as with different cultures. For example, when the Enlightenment swept through Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, good writing was concise, rational, an adequate representation of life and society and, above all, a criticism of the foolish. Think Alexander Pope, Moliere, and, of course, Descartes, who famously split the mind from the body.

Then along come Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Keats, and the rest of the Romantics, and they turn the focus to the emotions, to nature, to spirituality, and that's the stuff that makes good writing.

So the fact that my creative writing professor loved my short story is both encouraging and discouraging. Well, it gives me pause, at least. Maybe it's just because I'm new at this, and I'm still developing myself as a writer, but I'm not sure what to make of the fact that art is so subjective in one sense, and yet in another sense it's entirely objective. Like I said, there is good art, and there is bad; it's trying to find the distinction that's the challenge.

As if Mondays aren't bad enough already, my Mondays are always the longest, most tiring days of my week. I have four classes on Mondays - and in earlier semesters I've never had more than two classes in one day. World Lit, break. English lit, break. Creative Writing, break. Honors class. And today, I and another girl in my honors class are co-leading, which I'm a little nervous about but not nervous enough to really do anything else beforehand (although I may look over the readings again and jot down a few back-up discussion questions, just in case). My partner has never seemed too worried about the whole thing, so I'm following her lead.

I feel like I'm just doing work all day on Mondays. Most of the time I use my breaks in between classes to catch up on some reading I didn't finish, or edit whatever is due in Creative Writing that day. It takes about ten minutes to get from class to class because the campus is so huge, so a big chunk of my time is spent just commuting. At the end of the day, I'm mentally and physically exhausted.

On a sort-of related note, I'm going to post one of the exercises I did for Creative Writing today. We're focusing on setting, so the instructions for this particular exercise were to take a typical scene from your childhood and write about it using the long-shot, middle-shot, close-up method. If you're unfamiliar, it's basically a technique in which you begin describing your scene in a broad sense ("it was summer of 1995"), zoom in a little to the middle shot range ("the street in front of our midwestern house was deserted as usual") and then end on a tightly focused image ("I squirmed in my chair at the lemonade stand, shifting my legs every few minutes to unstick them from the hot plastic"). I don't know if those are the best examples (since I just made them up on the spot), but hopefully you get the picture.

Here's my piece. Honestly, it's probably my favorite bit of writing that I've done for this class so far.

The campus baked in the mid-afternoon sun, empty playground equipment and the metal sheeting of low-cost portables wobbling in the heat waves. There’s no bell, just a clock in every room watched by the teachers, and watched more closely by the students. At three o’clock it’s finally time, and we dart out of the low-ceilined classrooms, sneakers shuffling over the blue carpet and out onto the asphalt and dirt. Some parents are already idling in the pick-up line, and their corresponding students separate from the sticky herd, beckoned by air-conditioned vehicles. The rest of us make our way around to the backside of one of the buildings near the parking lot, a designated space of ground separated from the cars by a chain-link fence. I drop my purple backpack in the shade of the building, myself following. I wait, playing tic-tac-toe against no one, digging moats and constructing cities for ants until my mother’s minivan joins the cue of cars, kicking up dust, gravel crunching beneath the tires.

The Heights, and The Depths

I'm glad today got gray. As the sun went down, the clouds gathered a bit more, hiding the blue sky behind their wintry blanket. I meandered across campus, going from office to office getting signatures for my leave of absence form. The air was cool, the leaves were golden, and as I walked past the library, I mused about how the delicate white flowers in the bushes looked, at first glance, like bits of tissue paper strewn among the leaves.

I had lunch with my mentor, Dr. Vincent today. It was nothing short of wonderful. She treated me to In-N-Out, a fitting farewell meal, as she put it, since we don't have In-N-Outs in New Mexico. We talked about marriage, and Paul, and school, and theatre, and "The Dining Room".

Dr. Vincent began talking about how things in this life, while tainted by sin, can still be "tastes of heaven"; I think it stemmed from our discussion on marriage. Marriage, we agreed, is a sanctifying tool given to us by God. As Paul encourages his churches to do in his letters, spouses in marriage are not to simply endure trials, or each other's faults, but they are to actively pursue righteousness. As a wife, I am not to think, "I must suffer through my husband's faults and failures." Rather, I am to think, "How can I work with and around those things in order to serve him and purify us both?"

This life is not all about just getting to the next life. We can still have good things now, we can still be good people, friends, spouses, servants, now. I think, in a way, that's what Paul means when he says that marriage is to be an example of Christ's love for the church; we are still sinful, yes, and not fully perfect as we one day will be, but as Christ became our servant in order to make us righteous, we are to serve each other and help sanctify each other. We are saved by faith, not by works, but faith without works is dead. Faith in Christ justifies us; works in Christ sanctify us. In these ways, marriage is a taste of God's perfect love.

We talked about heaven. Dr. Vincent said that the times she most often wants Christ to come back is when she is feasting with friends. There is something about gathering together, around a huge, delicious meal, surrounded by people that you love, that tastes like heaven. She said she often wishes that all of her friends were there, and her whole family, too. She longs for everyone she's ever known and liked, and even those she hasn't liked because there were differences between them. She would love to have the time to see past those differences and to really get to know them. Time to sit, and be together, and shoot the breeze; to talk about things that are important, and things that aren't; to, as she put it, "sit in a corner with them, and eat nuts and berries."

I told her about our Gregory of Nyssa Christmas party, last Saturday at Laura's house. We didn't really think about it at the time, but looking back I think most of us have realized that it was likely one of the last times we'll all be together as our original group; the last time for a long time, at least. It's that same feeling she described; there is something about gathering together with loved ones around a feast that seems so heavenly. Those spaces and times in which we can enjoy each other's company, eat, laugh, or just sit together, content; in some small, shadowy way, that must be what heaven feels like.

Except, in heaven, there will be no need for goodbyes, and we will never feel rushed. We will never run out of time to get to know each other, or to say everything we want to say. As Sheldon Vanauken says in his painfully beautiful A Severe Mercy,

"Golden streets and compulsory harp lessons may lack appeal - but timelessness? And total persons? Heaven is, indeed, home."

I've said a lot of goodbyes lately. I said what will probably be my final goodbyes to some people in my group last Saturday. I cried.

After our long lunch, I decided on a whim to see if Mayers Auditorium was empty. It was. Devoid of people, but full of memories. I sat on the stage for a good half hour, the stage on which me and the rest of "The Dining Room" built characters, confidence, and friendships. I soon realized that I wasn't just sitting, I was waiting; I kept looking toward the door, expecting cast or crew members to walk in at any moment. It felt unnatural to be in there alone.

And I cried. But it wasn't a bad thing; in fact, I think it was a good thing. All the talk about life and marriage and the show had gotten a little emotionally overwhelming, and I just needed to let it out. I began to realize how much I'll miss my friends here, and how the love I have for them makes these goodbyes all the harder. It's painful, but it's a joyful pain, and I think that kind of pain is the sharpest. It reminds me that we're not home yet.

Thinking of everything Dr. Vincent and I had talked about, I couldn't help but remember Megan's final monologue in the play:

"Lately, I've been having this recurrent dream. We're giving the perfect party. We have our dining room back, and grandmother's silver, before it was stolen, and Charlie's mother's royal blue dinner plates, before the movers dropped them, and even the fingerbowls, if I knew where they were. And I've invited all of our favorite people. Oh, I don't just mean our old friends, but everyone we've ever known and liked. We would have the man who fixes our toyota, and the intelligent young couple who just bought the Peyton place; the receptionist at the doctor's office, and the new teller at the bank. And our children would be invited, too, and they'd all come back from wherever they are. And we've have two cocktails, and hot hors d'ovueres, and a first rate cook in the kitchen and two maids to serve, and everyone would get along famously.

My husband laughs when I tell him this dream. 'Do you realize,' he says, 'how hard it would be to throw a party like that? Do you realize how much a party like that would cost?' Well, I know. I know all of that. But sometimes, I think it just might be worth it."

I am not afraid like I used to be; afraid of the unknown, afraid of failure. God has blessed me incredibly, and I'm excited for how he is going to use me and Jordan to exemplify his love, sanctifying us through our marriage. He has also given me many friends, whom I love deeply; and so there is some pain in our parting, but it is a joyful pain.

Someday, these tastes of heaven will give way to the real thing, the complete, timeless perfection. And then, there will be no more bittersweet goodbyes, and the pain of homesickness will have been worth it. And we will all come back, from wherever we are.

Just a little something

I'd like to post more pictures in my blog. After all, I am a visual-learner type of person. I sort of think everyone is, really.

What an unexpected semester this has been. I know I keep talking about it, but it's because I can't stop thinking about it.

Music theory final Tuesday. Sight-singing final Thursday. Hopefully lots of talks and hugs and goodbyes with friends in between. Tomorrow morning I'm going to Target to get some stuff for Christmas gifts I'm putting together for the cast and crew of "The Dining Room" and for my lovely Torrey group, Gregory of Nyssa. I usually feel really bad at stuff like this; planning, gift-giving. But these might actually turn out nice. We'll see. I'm still bad at planning, though.

Seasons

I need another accordion file. Probably a couple, actually. I just spent some time cleaning up my desk space, which was covered in papers and mail and books. I am not a naturally organized person, and sometimes I don't know how my (more tidy) room mates put up with me. Clothing is the worst; when I get lazy, I don't bother to fold or put away clothes when I take them off. Especially if I'm just stumbling in after a long day; all I want to do is get in bed ASAP.

Another thing I need: to write something, even just a little something, every day. I think I'll set a goal for myself - maybe to spend fifteen to twenty minutes writing, either in my journal or on here, every day. The past few days I've been thinking to myself, I need to write, I need to organize my thoughts; but I haven't made the time, and if I put it off, those thoughts slowly fade away.

I think I could be a writer someday, in some form. I enjoy it, and my mentor says I've "got the chops" for it. But I am learning that, like almost everything in life, it is definitely a craft that needs to be practiced and perfected. One does not become a brilliant writer with charming syntax and a polished voice in a day, or a week, or a year. Life is all about the process. Life is, itself, one continuous process of continuous change and growth. As is writing, I think. As are most things.

This semester. Sheesh. So much has happened, most of it unexpected. I was in the play, which was one of the most formative experiences of my life; I made friendships I never knew I would make; I read a TON of theology; I got engaged. I feel like a totally different person now than the scared, insecure girl who began this semester. I'd almost forgotten about that girl entirely.

This semester, this crazy, wonderful, life-changing semester, finally feels like it's really coming to a close. Today, my good friends Anna and Christine threw me a bridal shower. It was so much fun, with lots of laughing and food and games. God has blessed me beyond words with the people, and the friends, that are here. In all of the heights and depths this semester has brought, they have rallied around me with encouragement and tender, genuine love. I think it's rare to find that in a group of people.

When the shower was over, it was a little bittersweet as I realized that it might be the last time for a long time that I see some of those friends. When the term's officially over next week and everyone has scattered in the wind, there will be some people I won't see until, perhaps, the day before our wedding - if then. It's really ending, I've realized. It's caught me a little off-guard; mostly, I think, because this semester has been jam packed with business and change. So much has happened, it's hard to believe it's almost over. This adventure is finally ending, and a new one is about to begin.

But, I do know that while it is more sad to leave this place because of the deep friendships I have gained, there is comfort for that very same reason. Although this is an end, it's not the end, and there are few people I'm saying goodbye to now whom I doubt will remain a part of my life, in some (if only small) shape or form for a very long time.

But even if not. Even if after a couple of years I lose touch with people, even if this is the last time I see some of them (I pray that's not the case), it will be okay. Because it has been good. It has been painful, and hard, and unbearably scary at times, but it has been good. I have tried, I have learned, I have grown, I have loved. And that will only continue in the future, whatever happens.

I have regrets. But this time, this season in my life - it has not been a waste.

A Brief Thought on Calvin (and other things)

I really need to write more. Life has been crazy with the play, and school, and just life stuff. It's getting to the point that I feel I'm going to burst from all the things filling up my heart and mind unless I write them down. Writing is such a wonderful release, such a wonderful way to articulate the things that swim around in my soul.

I'm reading Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion for Torrey right now. It's been a tough semester; with the play, I haven't had as much energy to focus on Torrey work, although everything has been really interesting. Interesting, but difficult. I think Jordan put it aptly when he said that he thinks I like everyone; that is, I'm pretty charitable toward almost any author I read. It's easy to get worked up over theology, especially when Calvin's in the mix, and maybe I'll feel differently when we actually get to his meatier, predestination stuff, but mostly I enjoy learning about what everyone has had to say about Christianity, and usually I can understand where they're coming from.

I want to write more, but I have to go to class. Meh.