Fashion, Hanging By Her Toes

"A lady is known by her shoes and her gloves" -Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

Tone

If I were to see me lifting weights, I am sure I would laugh. To use the explanation my friend Cathy gives, I am like a stretched-out rubber band, just as strong as the unstretched ones but rather less convincing.

But I continue to get up a bit earlier most mornings so that I can either go running (in the dark, here) or patter down the stairs to the Lamson Hall Health Club to lift weights. Some of my friends have marveled at this, mumbling something about my self-motivation, but I know that this phenomena has nothing to do with me. I know that Someone shakes me out of bed even when my alarm does not do its part.

Romans 15:1 reads: "Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves." God has given me the ability to rise early and exercise, but beyond this, He has given me the desire to seek Him. Through both my physical and spiritual workouts I continue to grow and find in Him the tone that I have always desired.

But with the extra strength comes responsibility and encouragement to be granted to others--especially to those still asleep and struggling to rise out of bed.

Let Loose

I used to keep turtles as summer pets, and when the nights began to burn the grass consistently with frost, I would take them over to our neighbor's pond to release them. Standing just beyond the bulrushes, I would watch the little fellows paddle out exuberantly and franticly all at once into the deeper waters, and always noticed that the center of the pond would almost simultaneaously birth a dozen or so forms of bass who would then circle the bewildered little newcomers as if to welcome them.

----

I sit in the doorway of my advisor's office in the English Department at Andrews University, attempting to figure out the details of my transfer. Her husband comes by and I am introduced--last name too, of course--and not thirty seconds later I have a friendly voice from the right and an exclamation from across the hall, and a cheerful assembly of professors and doctors of English and not English, some of whom I have already met, surrounding the part of me that portrudes from the harbor of the office, and swirling about me the cool green feel of a new stretch of friendly waters--and it has already been proven that these ones truly mean their welcome.

Journey Across the Desert

Once again on the eve of college-life, it is C.S. Lewis who is my inspiration--and this time it is The Horse and His Boy.

Like Shasta, I travel across a wide desert, although mine is not one of sand, but of hours away from home and of mountainlessness and of pavement in place of dirt. Like Shasta, I journey with good company and in two-some style, but instead of swell talking horses named Breehy-hinny-brinny-hooey-haw and Hwin, the cousin-steeds, I and my cousin Merideth are carried by Dinah, the bug-case, and led by some rented creature with no personality and a Massachusetts plate my parents and grandparents condescend to eat from.

I can smell my hot self as the sun pours its heat over me even with the windows down, and there is indeed the smell of hot car and the hours go by and we stop and walk around and eat and it is heat and sun and smell all over again, and sound of squeaking kayak on top of car and occasional jingling from an unhappy alternator belt and hours and beautiful pink sun now and nearly twilight and still desert and no hope of anything else.

Shasta had a mission--to save the Narnians and the Archenlanders, or you might say, Aslan's people--and for that one goal he sweated the miles across the desert from Tashban, heading for the twin top of Mount Pire. I might indeed come from a nicer place than Tashban and be headed off with no mountains in sight, but I have already found several Oasis' of providence like the Winding Arrow River. And I know too that my journey must be worth it as well as his--because my goal, by God's grace and direction, is the same.

Final Ride

I wanted to visit my little fellow and I needed some alone time with him--how awkward it would be to call someone, ask to come over to their place, and tell them to leave. But God had already arranged it weeks ago that Grayson's other Emily would be off colpuertering...

And so yesterday I went to see him, driving a half-hour around curves and straight across long stretches and up hills, finding him standing covered as thickly with flies as with fleabits. He perked up as I brought him out with my halter--a hand on his mane--dancing his little hooves in joy of going somewhere and bucking me up until I had to admit that my tears were not befitting to a rare and beautiful day of sunshine and a view of mountains, and cool trails, and a rather unafraid deer, and most importantly, a happy-go-lucky horse enjoying a special time with his girl.

No, he's right. We're both exquisitely guided.

You are no-longer a black colt anymore than I a filly-child
Dressed in frilly pink dresses,
But you yet flutter your nostrils at white daisy-patches And roll your eyes, bending from strange
Horse-eating bark in the road and frolicing
When I monkey onto you bareback.
When they thought your name was Raisin, I covered your ears
And your eyes too when they didn't believe you a boy and looked.
That time the nasty mare dented your flea-bitten bumper and
When you cut a thin, red snake into your leg backing off the trailer
I've iced you and soaked your stone-bruises until you
Kicked the Epsom Salts into a puddle on the floor.
You've covered my heart with horse-hair when it lay bare
Against your neck, sneezed yellow snot on my face with
Your wiggling nose and tried to eat toggles off my cargo pants,
Ear-pricking a whinny at me when I come to bring you home.

What's this road before us? Not that long black tunnel
We whisper of when joints burn with arthritis and pain prevents
Grass munching, else there would be acceptance. Nor
a trail blocked with a log--you love to dash over those or bushwack
If needed. It couldn't even
Be a freshly-graded dirt, spread as thickly as chunky peanut butter
With rocks--we would face the bruises together.
No, this is asphalt, a big highway I fear to take you on,
Scared you would lose your snort for country places, your
Romance for green fields. Love bids you stay--eight years later--
So I will have more reason to return, knowing your little nicker still begins high and
Ends in a deep chuckle that makes me laugh too.

Fields in Mid-August

I sit clattering here on a chattering old cutter bar--a giant sewing machine recklessly unraveling all summer's careful stiches--wintergreen, goldenrod, spiky juniper, wild blueberries, spare stems of hay, young pine, the stray anthill.

Here are no hydraulics, only the wheels to work the pitman rod back and forth, pulled triumphantly by Toyota and wickedly content to buck me off upon encountering a rock, keen blades clicking until they jiggle off their own bolts and destroy themselves in their own efficiency, cutting cleanly the metal, years old, still working, but now in need of adjustment

Further up the knoll Grandpa pulls a modern bushhog behind his farmall tractor. It doesn't carve as clearly as what he commonly used, in years past--the cutter bar-- but it is good that we have backup and Grampa himself admits it works, well--but rather complicated--looking wrong in its orangeness. But that's changing too, like the cabin needing paint and de-mousing, and a lift to its tired joints, and help remembering the glory of its first tidy seams.

In a few hours we take our scythes and clearing saws and bushhogs and tractors and damaged cutter bars and return them to their places one last time--it is time to go, all to Michigan in a few days. School calls and for some, a new way of life after 39 years in New England. And then again, fall is coming and we must leave Summer to busily restitch the patchwork that she loves, knowing too that frost will overtake her before she finishes. But that can be beautiful too.

What For?

There was a man once who lived in a little cabin out in the woods--far out from any sort of regular houses--contentedly, albeit a bit lonely-like. He had friends whom he would go and visit and take gifts to that he had made, and whom he was always writing letters to and invitations to his little hermitage, which sometimes returned with red stamps on them that the address could not be found, or returned with a kindly written excuse, or like some, didn't return at all.

But the man was far from discouraged. All around his cabin were woodlands and meadows and a pond and tall tree holes and little burrows and salty places and berry patches and as a result of so much plenteous extravagance, so there were also woodpeckers and 'coons and deer and bear and meadow voles and ants and the man delighted in seeing them come and partake of the natural wild delicacies and would talk to them from his porch as he saw them. Because there was no one unfriendly ever visiting the little cove of contentment, the man's four-footed and two-winged neighbors trusted him and minded not his companionship (we might even suppose that they enjoyed it).

One day as the man knelt in the dirt outside his cabin removing a few rare weeds that had come up amongst his lillies and humming, he saw out of the corner of his eye a little orange cat who was sitting under one of his tall pine trees and watching him. He was so surprised that for one split second he noticed that he had stopped humming and then his first thought considered it queer that such a creature would have come way out to his place when there were no houses for miles, and his second observation was that the cat was very small and very thin. He felt compassion and made a little friendly sound in his throat at which the puss dashed into the ferns behind the pine tree and was gone.

Several days went by and the man could not get the little cat out of his head. He began calling the creature Amie and although he would tap his forehead every time he did it and call himself daft, he began putting food out, fresh every day and making those friendly noises in his throat quite often. Six days went by and nothing happened, and then the next morning, he noticed that a little food had disappeared and it was with much excitement that he sat and watched his woodland friends that evening, whispering in such a joyful fashion that one after one he saw them lift their heads from their banquet, look at him, and move even closer.

The next morning a tiny sheltered and padded woven basket appeared next to the man's porch and this time he thought himself so silly that he would not admit to himself that he had put it there and like a addled fellow kept blaming it on "that compassionate man who lived down in the pond a ways." But he couldn't help his excitement about the piece of food being gone and he didn't stop to think if it had been one of the 'coons.

Three days and several morsels later, the man spotted a speck of orange over by the ferns and restraining himself to only one friendly noise, made himself keep working. To his elatement, more orange appeared and the cat hesitantly li-ft-ed--sl-o-w-ly--eac-h--p-aw across the clearing and arriving tentatively at the dish, ate some food. That night the bed had been slept in, and the next morning found the man waiting to serve Amie some breakfast.

Whoa! Not so fast! A helper? Amie sprinted for the ferns and was so fast that the man wondered if the repast had even been noticed. Well, Amie would be very hungry for supper, and so he waited, kindly.

But supper was two days later. The man dared hope that the friendly noises helped draw Amie back, although reason told him that it was the food. Then again... what was touching his fingers, soft-like and...and...fur? He couldn't look... but he knew he was being studied and his fingers quivered under the examination... and shivered so that Amie scurried to the ferns, but he could see the pert orange face peering at him... and drawing nearer.

Three more mealtimes were spent in this fashion and each time the man noticed that less food was getting eaten and more time was absorbed in an odd vibrating underneath the flaming coat and a strange pressure against his knees and loving hands. But that wasn't all. His berrypicking one morning was disturbed by a rustling in the bushes and a squeaky call and a special time of companionship and understanding nose-rubs. That night he left the window open an inch and a half wider than normal... and after a close encounter with glowing eyes, the mans feet were clothed with gladness--in other words, a little orange cat called Friend.

Raspberries

plump thimbles
brimming with and
dribbling concentrated
beads of red, tracing
thin threads across fingers,
jackets; embroidering
even lips with lines of crimson.

Emily's Place

It hardly seems like two more months could have slithered already into the hole of history, and yet seemingly they have--I didn't get to know them very well either.

I only know that they woke me up sometimes at 2:30 a.m. to tromp me all 21.3 miles over the Great Range of the Adirondacks...

That they paddled me across Saranac Lake in a yellow double kayak with friends, made sailing boats of my green crocs, and tickled my hand into picking wild blueberries for a yummy fruit smoothie...

That they greeted me each morning with twelve horse rumps and generally nine saddles, and many rides worth of kids all wishing to share my joy...

That they burst over my head a little bubble of spiritual moisture, committed friends, and Godly purpose...

Yes, these slender two months have given me a glimpse of God's place, which has gratefully become...